The future of recycling is now

Sherbourne Resource Park became operational in summer 2023 and its recycling management solution is more adaptable, efficient and technologically advance than other UK-based MRFs. It has flexibility built in and can quickly adapt to changes in volumes and materials processed, allowing it to deal smoothly with constantly evolving waste composition and changes in government legislation.

The plant uses specialist, industry-leading AI sorting and machine learning technology to produce a purer than industry average recyclate. This quality makes the materials produced more valuable to redistribute in an increasingly volatile recyclate market, allowing our partner councils to maximise the return from this valuable commodity.

Managing the risks together

The world of recycling is challenging for local authorities, with risks over which they have little control. The law requires them to collect recycling from residents as a statutory duty, yet they have to rely on escalating waste treatment costs from the private sector, driven by demand rather than operating costs. Changing consumer habits and evolution of the recyclate market mean local councils need a flexible and innovative solution for their waste management. A facility owned by a partnership of regional local authorities was a viable solution to manage their combined risks better and serve all residents more effectively – and that’s how Sherbourne Recycling Ltd was born.

People first

We do things the ‘Sherbourne Way’. One of the pillars of the Sherbourne Way is a “people first” approach. We offer remuneration packages above market rates and are proud to be a Real Living Wage Employer. People development is built into our ethos, too – we offer career development, training and qualification opportunities. We educate the next generation, local communities and industry delegates through site visits and educational programmes. For jobseekers, we offer a range of career opportunities such as waste management, operations and logistics, computers and technology, and engineering. We’re proud to say that the majority of the Sherbourne Resource Park workforce reside in the communities we were built to support.

Business excellence as standard

As far as waste management is concerned, we are committed to sustainability, equality and innovation in all areas. We are already working through the detailed process that will result in the achievement of B-Corp status, highlighting Sherbourne Recycling as meeting the ‘high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.’

Sustainability built in

From day one, 100% of our energy has been renewable, coming from photovoltaic cells and neighbouring Energy from Waste (EfW) plant. We’re always looking for ways to increase our sustainability and lower our carbon footprint now and in the future, so everything coming in and going out has as low an impact as possible.

Innovation

At Sherbourne Recycling, we’re changing the face of waste management. The future of the industry is already here. At our plant. Right now. From design, through build and into operations, we have future-proofed the facility to be fully flexible in order to adapt to a volatile industry whatever challenges may arise. Innovation can be found throughout our operation, from a pioneering partnership of eight West Midlands local authorities, who jointly own the business, and continuing with the latest, specialist sorting robotics, powered by AI and machine learning, to increase the purity of the recyclate we produce. Our design philosophy was always “quality over throughput” and it is an ethos we maintain today.

We built a wholly adaptable solution, allowing us to flex to the evolving nature of the recyclate market, legislation and consumer demands. The highly automated system installed at Sherbourne Resource Park can be altered with very little input and has extra capacity built in, to meet future demands be it from residents or government.

We do things differently

Shipping waste overseas is not the Sherbourne Way. All materials recycled at the Sherbourne Resource Park are redistributed in the UK. This can only be achieved because of the high levels of recyclate purity we produce compared to lesser pure material streams which are often sent abroad.