Hills Waste Solutions has unveiled a new machine which will make their Calne waste site more efficient.

The unique new equipment has been installed at their recycling plant on Porte Marsh Industrial Estate.

It uses tiny air jets to separate types of plastic and cardboard, increasing the efficiency of the company’s recycling operation.

Mike Webster, group director Hills, said: “Hills worked with Turmec Engineering to design a system which proc-esses recycling materials with maximum efficiency. We expect to achieve a 95 per cent recycling rate and have already been able to significantly reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill.”

Councillor Linda Conley, Wiltshire Council portfolio holder for waste, said: “Since the introduction of the new service, more than 3,000 tonnes of plastic bottles and cardboard have been collected for recycling.

“This is tremendous and will help ensure Wiltshire meets its targets of reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill to below 25 per cent and increasing recycling to 50 per cent by 2014.”

Brian Thornton, sales manager Turmec Engineer-ing, said: “We were delighted to work with Hills on this project. The plant has been optimised to have a very high recovery rate and we are happy with the results being achieved.”