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WEST COUNTRY RECYCLING SERVICES SAVED
21/08/2003
The UK’s largest community recycling organisation ECT has stepped in to save recycling services provided to 400,000 households.
The UK’s largest community recycling organisation ECT has stepped in to save recycling services provided to 400,000 households in the West Country. The current operator, Avon Friends of the Earth Group (Avon FoE), went into receivership on 21st August.
ECT has taken over the Avon FoE doorstep recycling services in Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, Taunton Deane, Mendip, Sedgemoor and South Somerset, as well as their recycling service to 2000 local businesses.
The purchase of these services will result in over 200 jobs being saved and ensure residents can continue to recycle from home.
Commenting on the announcement, Stephen Sears, Chief Executive of ECT, said “The news about Avon Friends of the Earth is obviously very sad but we have worked very hard with the support of their local authority partners to safeguard as many services and jobs as possible. This is good news because the business is being transferred to another social enterprise.
“We aim to ensure that things are very much ‘business as usual’ and that there is no disruption to recycling services.”
“We have spent 24 years running services for local communities. We intend to build upon the pioneering work of Avon Friends of the Earth, investing in staff training, new equipment and new systems to produce the best, most efficient recycling services possible.”
One of the Joint Administrative Receivers, Cedric Clapp of Bristol accountants Baker Tilly, said:
“Avon Friends of the Earth was established in the 1970s and played a major part in developing and improving the recycling industry, building the business to a turnover of £6 million. I am delighted that a speedy sale of the business has been achieved. It means that services will not be disrupted so that the public will be unaffected by the change within the Avon FoE business.”
Jane Stephenson, the Executive Director of The Recycling Consortium (TRC),
said:
“We are very sorry to lose Avon Friends of the Earth as a member of TRC but we look forward to seeing the further initiatives that ECT will bring to the challenge of developing recycling in the West Country.”