Greener Waste win Water Industry Achievement Awards
Wakefield Water Treatment company scoop major awards victory
Wakefield, April 4th 2011
WAKEFIELD water treatment specialist Greener Waste scored a David and Goliath victory at this year’s Water Industry Achievement Awards, after scooping two top prizes for innovation.
The little-known firm, which employs just five people, defeated multi-million pound turnover utility companies to win the Most Innovative New Technology award and Outstanding Innovation 2011 at a ceremony in Birmingham on March 29th.
Greener Waste won the accolades for its modular high efficiency reed bed which is used in the final stages of water treatment to filter out impurities such as heavy metals, ammonia, phosphates and pharmaceuticals.
The innovation lies in the beds’ construction – they are made from a series of specially constructed baskets bound together, which allows any blockages to be identified and removed quickly and cheaply.
Greener Waste founder and managing director, Stuart Christian, said: “Reed beds are amazing things because they are very effective, totally natural, require very little power and the reeds give out oxygen so they are very green.
“However, traditionally they required a large area of land and they do block up. This causes problems in the respect that it can be difficult to find precisely where the blockage is, and once you do it can be hard to repair because they tend to collapse in on themselves under weight.
“Our beds solve this problem. Because of the way the baskets are connected together they work as a single, rigid unit, but if they block up individual baskets can be removed and cleaned out quickly. It is a simple technology but one that has the potential to save water companies a lot of money.”
Greener Waste was established in 2008 and Stuart has spent the last three years developing the reed bed technology along with other waste water solutions.
The company has fitted beds at eight sewage treatment sites across the UK and currently has enquiries from as far afield as Qatar, India, Indonesia, China and Holland.
Greener Waste has its head office on Bond Street, Wakefield and its manufacturing base on Church Street, Ossett where the operation is currently expanding.
Stuart said he was “absolutely elated” to have won the awards.
He said: “I’m pleased the industry recognises that small companies can make a valuable contribution but also that we need help. Most big companies have an R&D budget bigger than our turnover but often smaller firms have the great ideas.
“To triumph against such well established and well funded companies is beyond what I thought we would achieve and it validates all the effort of the last three years.”