Newmarket muckheaps being used to provide energy
Stable waste created by the hundreds of racehorses based in Newmarket could soon be heating schools and hospitals.
A proposal has been put forward by Jockey Club Estates to build a recycling plant to turn the waste stable products – manure and soiled bedding – into fuel and fertiliser at a plant
in Newmarket.
It aims to recycle 5,000tonne of the 25,000tonne of stable waste created in Newmarket annually.
The Jockey Club has been working for around 18 months on the plan with European firm GG Eco Solutions.
The company specialises in converting organic waste material into dry biomass fuel and fertiliser.
Another by-product of the waste would be 2,000tonne of water, which would be used to irrigate woodland, paddocks and Jockey Club Estates’ grounds.
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“The scheme uses stable waste and turns it into granular fertiliser and compressed biomass pellets,” William Gittus from Jockey Club Estates told H&H.
“Currently, the waste is taken to power stations out of the area at a considerable cost to training yards – in some cases, around £30,000 a year.
This plan aims to reduce costs considerably, but will also substantially decrease lorry movements in the town.”
A planning application has now been submitted to install a recycling plant at Southfield Farm, off Hamilton Road in Newmarket.
Suffolk County Council is considering the application and a decision will be announced on 9 January.
This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (5 January 2012)
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A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.