SUMMER 13
CASE STUDY
good chemistry
A Bradford-based healthcare waste management company is leading the UK march on innovation as it seeks to transform solid waste into chemicals. Ruth Lognonne reports
GW Butler is part of the European Union (EU) funded Waste2Go project, whose main objective is the transformation of the biogenic fraction of municipal solid waste into chemicals with a monetary value greater than what could be achieved if it was used as an energy source. The research and technological development (RTD) project is made up of eight partners from five European countries and will be implemented over three years. “It really is cutting edge,” said managing director of GW Butler, Martin Helstrip. “It’s very much in the R&D stage and we’re about nine months into a three-year project. “Using innovative approaches the outputs will be optimised for market value as chemical feedstocks. “The waste industry has always been about segregating smaller parts of waste. “What waste providers have done over the last 10 years is start to deliver to different consumers so you can separate waste at source into materials that can have a value – something that can be done with it,
other than go into landfill.” GW Butler was established in 1933, specialising in the collection and recycling of scrap metal. Over the past 70 years, four generations of the Butler family have steered the company through various developments culminating in the specialist waste treatment at Bow Beck in Bradford. In the early 90s, the company installed an incinerator for disposal of wood waste and this evolved into a clinical waste disposal facility at a time when the NHS was losing its Crown immunity. GW Butler continued to strive for best available technology and towards the end of the 90s an alternative technology plant was bought to replace the clinical waste incinerator. “Health care waste had always been a no-go area for recycling,” said Helstrip. “These devices are safe, but it’s a public relations challenge. Some people don’t like the idea that they’re being treated with equipment that has been used before. “One of the innovations we brought in was the
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recycling of single-use medical equipment and it’s been very well received by health care providers. “No one really thinks of good hospitals as massive waste producers, but they are. There are many things hospitals can do to decrease waste and save money that they are not currently doing.” “Selecting good devices for re-sterilisation and retesting could decrease the amount of needless waste from hospitals.” Although there is a clear value in recycling waste from health care providers, GW Butler has an ethical duty to ensure hospitals are striving to reduce the amount of waste they produce, through training. Helstrip said: “We encourage our NHS trusts through training and information provision to produce less waste, because that’s the correct thing to do. “Our goal is to reduce the amount of waste produced by a hospital because that’s the moral obligation we have to the planet. “There are a lot of wasted resources in this country and I think we can get ourselves out of the economic mire that we’re in by being more waste conscious than we are.” The company has grown exponentially in the past four years, acquiring a company called Medical Waste Solutions in Nottingham and a further plant in East London in 2010. GW Butler’s turnover currently stands at £5m and it employs 42 staff across all of its sites. It has ambitions to grow that turnover to nearer £7m in the next financial year as it begins to capitalise on its acquisitions and investments. “We’re bringing the technology that we’ve developed in Yorkshire to a wider market place,” said Helstrip. “We’re looking to add another two facilities to our portfolio in the UK over the next five years.” n
SPECIAL REPORT | SUMMER 13