FIRM FACTS

Name: Sussex Waste Recycling Ltd, trading as Rabbit Skips

Business nature: Waste management

Date established: 1988

Location: Lancing Business Park and North Quay Road, Newhaven

Number of employees: 70

Annual turnover: £5.2 million

Saving the world wasn’t on the agenda of Mandy Bridson and her brother Greg Blurton back in 1988.

Mandy, now 43, had just returned from Australia with her baby son while Greg, a trained engineer, was wondering what to do with a lorry he had just bought.

They decided to go into business together, offering mini skips for hire to small businesses and householders.

Mandy said: “It has always been very expensive to hire a skip so we thought we spotted a gap in the market. Greg would do the deliveries while I would handle the office stuff. It was as simple as that.”

Their company, Sussex Waste Recycling, which now trades as Rabbit Skips, specialises in disposing of demolition and construction waste.

It has grown steadily during the years and now operates from two plants in Newhaven and Lancing, employing 70 people.

As landfill sites fill up across the country – the massive site at Beddingham is due to shut at the start of the summer – the issue over how to cope with waste has become a contentious subject.

Plans for a huge incinerator at Newhaven provoked a storm of controversy from environmental groups before Veolia was eventually given the green-light to start construction, which is due to be completed by the end of 2011.

As local a u t h o r i t i e s could face increasingly heavy fines for failing to dispose of waste or recycle properly, firms such as Rabbit Skips will become i n c r e a s i n g l y important.

Mandy is proud that they spotted the landfill problem several years ago and made ambitious plans to provide a solution.

The result of all their hard work is Enviropower – a massive processing plant in Lancing which can both dispose of waste and generate clean, green electricity.

Mandy said: “We are dealing with two hot potatoes – too much waste and not enough power. I think what we offer is a very good solution to both these problems.”

The plant works by processing waste and burning it, generating steam which powers generators to make electricity.

The electricity is sold to the national grid through a company called Green Energy.

Enviropower, the first of its kind in Britain, is the kind of technology which many believe is the only hope the planet has of being saved from catastrophe due to climate change and global warming.

Although she is now a committed recycler and conscious of the environment, Mandy admits the company never started with such altruistic intentions.

She said: “Hand on heart, I was not like that at all. I don’t think anyone really thought like that 20 years ago. There was still lots of room in landfills back then so it wasn’t as much of an issue.”

Although it is not yet running at full capacity, Mandy and Greg are delighted to have finally installed the Enviropower plant.

Visit www.rabbitgroup.co.uk for details.