Salmon firm thinks outside the polystyrene box

One of Europe's biggest smoked salmon producers is finding that it pays to recycle.

Farne Salmon and Trout, which is located in the Scottish Borders, acquired a Greenbank Cobalt SC3000 compactor in February 2010 to compress its polystyrene waste.

The firm previously had to pay for its used polystyrene fish boxes to be collected, but now it can sell the compacted blocks.

Not only is the new revenue stream generated being used to offset the purchase of the specialist machine, the machine also has environmental benefits.

Martin Smith, Farne's projects, site services and environmental manager, said that the compactor was originally acquired mainly for more efficient waste management, but the revenue stream came as a bonus. "We had reviewed our recycling strategy as part of our environmental management ISO 14001 process and identified that if we brought the processing of the boxes in which our raw fish arrives here onsite, we could generate a revenue stream," he explains.

Since it was set up in 1982 with six staff, Farne has grown to become the biggest private employer in the Borders with a core workforce of 450 people.

Contact: Greenbank Tel: 01642 242 294