Grundon goes for growth

by Ian Brown

Growth in recycling that is. The South Oxfordshire-based waste-handling specialist has installed a brand-new Finlay recycling plant at its Ewelme facility at a cost of £500,000.

The new plant is designed to reclaim demolition waste utilising a Finlay 798 Trommel, vibrating grid, a mobile picking station, two stockpiling conveyors and an overband magnet to collect ferrous material. Grundon's, which was founded 70 years ago by its president Steve Grundon, now has two fully-operational recycling plants - one at its Colnbrook, Slough facility and this new one at Ewelme.

"We're the largest privately-owned firm of our type in the UK," says Jonathan Bowman marketing and sales manager. "We operate six waste facilities and 12 quarries as well as a golf course at Thorney, near Iver, Buckinghamshire. In the past few years we've restored around 100ha of former waste land as well as planting more than 250,000 shrubs and trees."

Although at present Ewelme handles around 16,000t of demolition waste per year it's expected that this will rise to more than 73,000t in the short term. Of this around 60 per cent will be recycled with just 40 per cent going into landfill.

"Which means more space left for biodegradable waste," says development director Neil Grundon. "And landfill is becoming ever-scarcer and more valuable so this is an important step for both us and the area of South Oxfordshire."

Life president Steve Grundon was at the ceremony as South Oxfordshire District Council chairman David Turner cut the tape to officially open the plant. "He doesn't work as hard as he used to now but he still takes an active interest in what's happening in the firm," smiled his son Norman who is now the MD. "This a very proud day both for him and for us. We have a long record of innovation in this industry and a lot of it was down to Dad. Our short lines of communication mean we can reach decisions very quickly and often we outperform larger more corporately-inclined competitors."