Firm hasn’t wasted its opportunity to grow fast

Jun 5 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

A WASTE management company today opens the doors to new facilities which will enable it to enter the lucrative Chinese export market and spread its offering across the country.

The Durham Company’s new £1m waste recycling facility in Fencehouses, Houghton-le-Spring, will reduce waste dumped to landfill and support various green initiatives.

It will also give the fast-growing firm the capacity to sell treated cardboard and plastics in bulk to Chinese businesses via shipping agents.

The company has seen its revenue surge from scratch to £2m in the three years since its inception and, boosted by its new headquarters, expects to add a further £1.5m to its annual sales in the next three years.

The firm was launched by young entrepreneur Scott Hawthorne after he secured a trade waste business contract from Durham City Council.

The group, which is owned by Mr Hawthorne, his father Raymond and operations director Patrick Roche, initially acquired 900 clients from the Durham authority.

Today the group has spread its wings across Tyneside, Teesside and Wearside and is the waste management firm of choice for 85% of the businesses in The Bridges shopping centre in Sunderland as well as having contracts with McDonald’s and KFC.

Scott said: “We have pushed into Tyneside, where our customers are of a smaller nature, although we collect from the Hilton Hotel.

“Elsewhere, we have won a lot of business from Middlesbrough Council and we also service most of the franchised McDonald’s restaurants in Middlesbrough.

“We are looking to expand outside of the area in the long term, possibly into the central belt of Scotland.”

The business recently invested more than £750,000 in a new fleet of five fuel-efficient collection vehicles.

The company’s growth has been aided by the European Landfill Directive which came into force two years ago, decreeing that all commercial waste must be pre-sorted in the same way householders prepare for kerbside collections.