East London Gets 4.5m LWARB Boost

6 October 2010

£4.5 million of funding from the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) has been allocated to extend a recycling facility in East London. Waste management company Bywaters will use the money to build an additional Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) at its 9.2 acre site in Bow. This will feature equipment that separates mixed recycling such as paper, card and glass.

The recycling technology will be housed in the same building as Bywater's existing facility and will bring the recycling capacity of the facility to 260,000 tonnes per year. The extension will create 90 new jobs and displace around 940,000 tonnes of CO2 over the 25 year life of the project.

James Cleverly, Chair of LWARB, said: "Bywaters' great new facility is planned to be up and running in just over a year, in time for the 2012 Games. This investment ticks all the right boxes, not only will it divert an additional 142,000 tonnes of recycling from landfill each year, but will also create new employment opportunities for Londoners."

LWARB has recently amended its Business Plan for 2010/11 including a revision to the allocation of funds and the intention to support two MRFs.

This is the seventh project to receive LWARB funding to date, and is the first MRF out of the planned two to receive funding from the Board.

Tom Lee