Donald Ward Ltd, the Midlands’ largest independent metal recycling and waste management specialist has been honoured with a Queen’s Award for International Trade for Outstanding Short Term Growth in overseas sales over the last three years.

WARD Immingham

Headquartered in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the fourth generation, independently owned family business now employs close to 400 people across its sites nationwide.

Ward collects and processes around a million tonnes of materials annually; recycling products such as metals, plastics, glass, cardboard, wood, textiles, soils, and hardcore to ensure its customers fulfil environmental regulations and commitments.

It aims to divert 100 per cent of the waste it processes from landfill and uses sophisticated metal sorting equipment to extract every last scrap of metal from end-of-life vehicles, as well as other waste electronic and electrical items.

Thomas Ward, Commercial Director at Ward said: “Winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade is a huge honour for the Ward team. Our core business, which represents around 80 per cent of turnover, is the buying, selling, processing and recycling of ferrous and non-ferrous metals from a variety of sources, including end-of-life vehicles and arisings demolition projects.

“Over the three years to March 2019, thanks to significant investment in deep sea dock facilities and ongoing hard work of our dedicated teams, our overseas sales grew by 84 per cent, a growth rate of 36 per cent per annum. We were able to expand our export capabilities to service larger customers in Turkey, Egypt, India and Pakistan.

“We are planning sustainable growth with significant future investment into our people, processes, equipment and infrastructure. We are excited about the potential opportunities that winning the Queen’s Award could bring to help us achieve our long term ambitions.”

For more information about Ward’s metal recycling and export capabilities, visit Ward’s website.