Fire-hit waste management firm returns home and expands business

After a devastating fire destroyed its Exeter-based recycling centre in March 2017, leading independent commercial waste management firm DCW has at long last returned home to its original operations site where now stands a state of the art new-build HQ. The move follows a four year wait for the new HQ to be built and is perfectly timed to facilitate the company’s latest expansion plans.

This month, the Zero to Landfill waste and recycling experts also welcomed eight new employees to the picking line at DCW’s Thorverton Road commercial recycling centre. Here, mixed waste is sorted, baled and sold for onward processing to create new materials and products in a wide variety of industries.

Named after the original building, the Enviro Hub is a new 18,000 sq ft state-of-the-art building on Marsh Barton Road and home to 74 employees, the Exeter fleet of 28 vehicles and DCW Polymers, the company’s specialist plastics reprocessing plant which was previously based in Wrangaton.

As the only specialist plastics recycling and reprocessing plant south of Bridgewater, the move to Devon’s capital city ensures improved access to DCW Polymers for South West businesses wishing to improve their plastic recycling credentials. The Enviro Hub houses a state-of-the-art plastic processing machine which DCW invested £280,000 in last year. The machinery is capable of processing in excess of 100 tonnes of plastic a week. It turns waste plastics into plastic granules, which go back into the manufacturing process and reduce the need for virgin plastic products to be manufactured.

Leading the way in sustainable business, the highly insulated Enviro Hub boasts a host of environmental features including a water harvesting system to collect rainwater for reuse, an air source heat pump and 200 solar roof panels for generating electricity.

The opening of the new Enviro Hub marks a year of growth for DCW. Not only has the waste disposal and recycling company introduced new machinery at DCW Polymers, it has also invested £456,000 in three new state-of-the-art, environmentally efficient trucks.

DCW Managing Director, Simon Almond, said: “Despite the challenges DCW has faced since the fire and now a global pandemic, we’ve continued to invest in new technologies, the business and our team. Enviro Hub is the culmination of four years hard work and sets us on a course for a bright future supporting south west businesses to achieve more ambitious recycling targets.

“Our waste management services are driven by a passion to help businesses become more environmentally responsible and we were keen that our company ethos was reflected in the new environmentally sustainable Enviro Hub. We were left with absolutely nothing when the fire engulfed our original Head Office in 2017. I am thankful to my team for their resilience and hard work; we were determined to make this an opportunity to come back bigger, stronger and more environmentally responsible than ever before.”

DCW empties in excess of 16,000 containers every week from over 6,000 businesses across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. It was the first company in the South West to offer a Zero to Landfill solution, meaning that all materials that can be recycled, are. DCW’s Zero to Landfill solution helps support the waste management and recycling industry by providing materials for onward processing, recycling and manufacturing. As well as its Zero to Landfill service for mixed commercial waste, DCW also provides specialist waste management services such as data destruction, WEEE disposal and site clearances.

For more information about DCW’s services, visit www.dcw.co.uk or call 01392 361300.