A £9.8 million waste treatment plant designed by Race Cottam Associates has won an important national environmental award.

Race Cottam Associates designed the facility in Stornoway, Scotland which has won the Let's Recycle award for innovation in design.

Race Cottam acted for Barnsley-based waste management specialists, Earth Tech Engineering Ltd to design the building which now recycles all the waste from the 3,000 sq km Western Isles, helping to meet Scottish and European Union landfill-diversion targets.

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The Creek Park facility is also the first commercial-scale waste treatment facility in the UK to generate renewable electricity by the composting of kitchen and other organic waste. Other processes carried out at the recycling plant include sorting, cleaning and reprocessing of all kinds of organic and non-organic waste.

The aesthetic design of the facility had to fit into a rural and largely non-industrial landscape due to the Western Isles' sensitive environmental location and their heavy reliance on tourism.

Dave Speddings, Race Cottam regional director, said: "The multi-million pound Stornoway recycling centre was one of the first waste management facilities Race Cottam worked on as a practice and it has gone onto become an example for best practice in a niche sector, which this award recognises.

"Race Cottam are now nationally renowned architects for waste management design, with further key projects underway in Berkshire, Humberside and London."

(GK/JM)