OBJECTIVE ONE HELPS WEST CORNWALL FARM RECYCLE GREEN WASTE

A West Cornwall farm is looking forward to a green and fertile future thanks to a £159,917 grant from Objective One to purchase equipment for converting green and wood waste into a quality compost to fertilise farm land.

The £736,077 project, on sites near Hayle and Camborne, will provide substantial local environmental benefits by reducing the amount of green and wood waste entering Cornish landfill sites by more than 15,000 tonnes in the next four years. This will help local councils meet government recycling targets.

The green waste and some of the wood waste provided through Cornwall County Council, and Kerrier and Penwith Councils, is shredded and mixed with slurry before being stacked into 1.5 metre piles, known as winrows. The mixture is then aerated at regular intervals for up to 16 weeks until is transformed into a useable compost that can be spread on farmland.

New uses are also given to wood waste which is screened according to size, with large pieces sent to manufacturers for reuse, and the remainder shredded and cleaned to remove harmful by-products so that the small wood chips can be used as cattle bedding or incorporated into the composting mix.

For the past year the farm has trialed the recycling operation using hired equipment, and after a successful year of operation the £629,041 investment in new equipment and site improvements was necessary to set up the commercial composting and recycling business.

Commenting on the diversified future for the farm thanks to Objective One funding, Project Manager Felicity Richards said: “We are thrilled to be successful in obtaining Objective One funding to go ahead with our plan of being the first commercial composting and recycling business in West Cornwall. The funding has been vital to enable us to diversify but we hope that our work will also have a beneficial effect on the local community by demonstrating the need to reuse and recycle and encourage more local residents and businesses to use council facilities to recycle their green waste.

“Starting a new business is always complicated, especially in the context of the environmental regulations that our business must meet to operate. Faced with the adversity of starting a new business, Objective One funding and County Environmental Trust have made the whole process a lot easier. My challenge now as project manager is to use our funding well to ensure that we have a lasting business that will continue to deliver an important environmentally friendly waste disposal service in the area.”

Emily Walker, waste recycling officer at County Environmental Services, the company set up by Cornwall County Council to manage Cornwall’s waste, also emphasised the environmental value of the new project: “The Government has set challenging targets for recycling and composting so it's essential to have local composting facilities. In 2002 we have recycled 6,000 tonnes of green waste. This project will help us increase the amount of green waste we compost in the forthcoming years.”

The £736,077 project has been granted £159,917 from the Objective One European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), which match funding provided by DEFRA and £416,243 of additional funding coming from the private sector.