Farmers looking for a reliable, ethical and competitively priced recycling service for their farm plastics and other material need look no further than Andover, Hampshire based Farm Waste Solutions.
While the company is new, the man behind it is one of the most experienced there is in the waste recycling business and is well-known to farmers and landowners across the southern half of the country. Ian Kitson sold his previous, long-standing, farm waste business in November 2023, but this did not work out as planned – and now he’s back.
Ian recognised the need for a reliable recycling service as far back as 2006, when he realised that incoming legislation banning famers from burying or burning waste materials, and requiring them to keep an audit trail of how they dealt with them, provided a useful business opportunity.
“I realised that farmers would be looking for a reliable way to meet the legislation, and when the waste management company I was working for at the time decided it wasn’t for them, I set up my own business to provide the service,” he recalled.
Then, as now, Ian worked closely with Solway Recycling, which provides the bin and liner system that makes it easy for the customer to keep recyclable materials separated ready for collection. The material is then recycled and used by Solway to make new items, including pig arks, sheep and calf pens and a wide range of livestock boarding.
Ian set up Farm Waste Solutions at the end of 2024 with business partner Edward Du Val, part of a family business which runs one of the UK’s larger anaerobic digestion plants at Apsley Farms, Andover and equally experienced in dealing with farm businesses.
The company covers the whole of the south of the country, supporting farmers as far north as Birmingham and the Midlands, with around 3,000 business relying on Farm Waste Solutions for a bespoke solution to the disposal of everything from old tyres and spray cans to used silage wrap. It even collects and recycles used shotgun cartridges.
The beauty of the Farm Waste Solutions operation is that the service is available on a ‘pay as you go’ basis rather than involving contracts and pre-payment. “It works for everyone, from large estates that need a regular collection through to smallholders who may only need us to call once every few years or so,” Ian explained.
“In both cases the customers only pay for the service they need, and if they aren’t happy they are free to go elsewhere. It makes us determined to deliver a first-class service and keeps the farmer in control of spending.”
Alongside smaller customers, which include vineyards and equestrian businesses, Farm Waste Solutions looks after a number of large estates which need regular collections of bigger amounts of recyclable materials.
“An estate in Dorset recently decided to turn part of the site which had been home to a number of dairies into a wedding venue but first had to tidy it up, which included getting rid of 7,000 old tractor and car tyres, many of which had been used over the years on top of silage clamps,” he said.
Farm Waste Solutions also works with a number of councils and their contractors to recycle waste from managing and maintaining parks and green spaces.
Farm Waste Solutions, which also now recycles rubber digger and crawler tracks, has a flexible fleet of vehicles which ranges from a four by four with a trailer through to four- and six-wheel crane lorries and an articulated lorry for bulk movements.
The workforce is also expanding from three to five as the company continues to establish itself as the go-to option for farmers looking for a reliable and cost-effective way to comply with legislation.
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