Recycling firm’s investment pays dividends

Industry leading machinery has helped social business Recycling Lives to achieve the highest environmental standards.

This month marks the ‘first birthday’ of the waste management and recycling business’ state-of-the-art pre-shredder, installed at the 15-acre Recycling Lives Recycling Park (RLRP) last year; improving environmental standards, creating more jobs and offering customers competitive prices.

The pre-shredder processes bulky or large-volume waste material, reducing it down to manageable size ahead of further processing through RLRP’s fully-online, digitised fragmentiser.

Recycling Lives boasts the lowest incident record for decompression events in the country thanks to its innovative approach to recycling, including the implementation of the pre-shredder - one of just three in the UK.

Introduction of the machinery at RLRP has also increased productivity by 20% and created dozens of skilled jobs, as well as protected jobs, and allows Recycling Lives to deliver the best service and price to customers.

Legal and compliance director Paul Finnerty said: “As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, the installation of the pre-shredder, and the associated changes to our processes, have enabled us to increase productivity, improve environmental standards, and produce a better-quality output for customers.”

Recycling Lives made the £1m investment in February 2016.

This was part of £1.5m investment by the organisation in 2016, as its charitable arm opened a further six HMP Academies, creating more than 100 jobs.

Recycling Lives uses clever business practice for social good – it is committed to 100% diversion from landfill and creating meaningful, skilled jobs for people from a range of backgrounds. Its commercial waste management and recycling business, spread across three Lancashire sites, supports its charitable ventures, offering employment and accommodation to homeless adults, rehabilitating offenders through employment and training, and redistributing surplus food to community groups and charities.