SunEnviro is expanding its waste processing capabilities to produce premium aggregate products and sand at its site in Thetford, Norfolk, England, following a £3 million investment in a state-of-the-art McLanahan waste recycling plant. Aggregates Business visited the site for a close-up look and to hear about the long-term expectations for the setup.
SunEnviro managing director Mat Stewart proudly states that his three business brands – SunSkips, SunDemolition, and SunAggregates – generate no waste that is directly sent to landfill. The company’s new up to 70 tonnes per hour waste recycling plant in Thetford, Norfolk, one of several SunEnviro operates in eastern England, will process up to 100,000 tonnes of waste annually into premium aggregate products and sand, in compliance with (BSE 9321) British Standards.
While SunEnviro’s significant seven-figure investment in the comprehensive McLanahan setup has already started to prove its worth since becoming fully operational in May this year, the firm’s notable increase in its waste processing is likely to prove highly shrewd as well.
Introduced in 1996 to encourage more sustainable waste management practices, the Landfill Tax applies to taxable disposals at landfill sites and, more recently, unauthorised sites. In April 2025, HM Treasury, the UK government’s economic and finance ministry, and HM Revenue & Customs, the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority, launched a consultation on Landfill Tax reform, proposing the removal of the lower rate of Landfill Tax (£4.03 per tonne for inert materials such as rocks and soil) by 2030. In its place, an escalator will be applied to the lower rate until it reaches the standard rate level (currently £126.15 per tonne), with the Qualifying Fines Regime and quarries and dredging exemptions being removed from April 2027. The new Landfill Tax rules will be coupled with increased penalties for illegal disposals.
Stakeholders, including the Mineral Products Association (MPA) and British Aggregates Association (BAA), have expressed concerns about the economic impact of the Landfill Tax reform proposal. Landfill Tax reform consultation closed in July 2025, with a wide range of industries, including quarrying, construction, and recycling, awaiting the UK government’s next steps.
“If all goes to plan, we thought we’d start seeing a return on our investment in three to four years, but if the government do what they say they are going to do [on Landfill Tax reform], it will be a lot quicker, potentially 12 months,” says Stewart, who has nearly 30 years of experience working in environmental services, with SunEnviro, which started as SunSkips in Stowmarket in May 2020, now covering sites in Thetford, Cambridge, Haverhill, Ipswich, Dereham and Hoddesdon. “We are saving £600,000-£700,000 a year by not having to put 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes of waste and fines into landfill, and that’s at the lower [Landfill Tax] rate. If the standard tax rate applies, I don’t know how many businesses like ours will be able to put a skip out and be competitive.
“We are also fortunate in being able to control what we bring here in our own vehicles. We can keep material coming in, but our guys have got to sell the [recycled aggregate and sand] product that goes back out, so we adjust the daily volumes we are processing”
SunEnviro’s bespoke waste recycling plant features a McLanahan UltraSCRUB, UltraSAND, and HRT10 Thickener, which work together to ensure high throughput, minimal water usage, and full site circularity, culminating in the final step of the process: a McLanahan Filter Press.
The McLanahan setup at Thetford, which washes and recovers materials from construction and demolition sites, excavation waste, and trommel fines, is part of SunEnviro’s nationwide effort to turn waste into valuable recycled aggregates under its SunAggregates brand.
Comprised entirely of McLanahan equipment and plants, the Thetford plant solution has been designed to minimise water intake and ensure the process retains as much material and water on site as possible.
The tight two-acre footprint of this site has necessitated a considerable planning process for McLanahan. The system forms an ‘L‘ shape along two sides, maximising room for feed material and clean, sorted end products.
Asked about why he opted for a McLanahan waste recycling plant at SunEnviro Thetford, Stewart says: “I looked at eight suppliers and then a friend of mine at Global Machinery Solutions introduced McLanahan to me. I whittled it down to three suppliers and then worked with McLanahan to optimise what we wanted here, looking at the site we had available. It was good to work with people who wanted to provide us with a solution: a – to fit on the site; and b- to wash what we wanted to wash. McLanahan was the easiest to work with and had the breadth and depth of knowledge that others didn’t, or didn’t want to share. I also think they really wanted to work with us. The whole [recycling plant investment] deal took around 10 months.”
SunEnviro manages over 120,000 tonnes of waste across the east of England, with an inventory of 4,000 skip containers and a fleet of 65 fuel-efficient vehicles. The company only processes waste collected from its SunSkips and SunDemolition sites. “The plant feed is half crushed rubble and half trommel fines, which is turned into 0-4 millimetre sand, and 4-10, 10-20 and 20-plus millimetre aggregate,“ explains Stewart.
“I like to say that what we do is spinning plates. All of our [SunSkips and SunDemolition] sites are full of fines and rubble, which is great feedstock for here. This Thetford site sits in the middle [of SunEnviro’s site network], and I can bring fines in from, say, Norwich and take washed sand or 0-10mm aggregate back to sell out of bags at that site. We sell to local construction companies, housing developers, highway contractors, and civils and utilities companies.“
Stewart is speaking to Aggregates Business on 3 September 2025, as SunEnviro and McLanahan are partnering for an Open Day at SunEnviro’s Thetford site. The two companies welcomed around 80 industry professionals representing a variety of construction and civil engineering companies, as well as council highways authorities, to experience SunEnviro Thetford’s innovative McLanahan recycling system.
This Open Day offered those looking to improve or add a recycling process to their plant, as well as those who are struggling with the upcoming costs associated with the end of qualifying for trommel fines in the UK, significant insight into best practices for building a circular system.
Speaking to attendees, McLanahan CEO Sean McLanahan said: “We are really excited about what’s happening in Europe. We made a substantial investment in the market over the past five-plus years and have over 100 employees in the UK and [mainland] Europe. We are continuing to expand, and part of that is in C&D recycling, which is extremely important to us. The two areas in which our company continues to grow around the world are in C&D recycling and water management, utilising our thickeners and filter presses“
“I think it’s great to work with McLanahan and help them get into a market that is desperate for professional businesses to sell them a product that works,“ says Stewart. “I think today has been good for people to see how we fit and operate this kind of plant on an industrial estate site. Everyone automatically thinks it would be based in a quarry. If you look at the Norfolk Local Plan, all inert recycling is being directed towards industrial sites rather than extending the life of quarries. We are very proud of what we have here. We want to replicate it at some of our existing sites and potentially at some new ones that we buy in the future.”
David Hunter, McLanahan’s business line director, who is sitting alongside Stewart during his conversation with Aggregates Business, said: “This installation has been a real collaboration, a lot of sitting down together, talking through the process and adjusting. This is the first time we’d put a plant like this in, and we were saying: ‘Guys, we will make this work.'”
Stewart notes that he wanted the Thetford McLanahan plant to feature an Eddy Current Separator (ECS). This machine uses high-speed rotating magnets to induce eddy currents in non-ferrous metals, such as aluminium and copper, creating a repulsive magnetic field that pushes them out of the waste stream. The process is used in recycling facilities to recover valuable metals from materials such as plastics and wood, increasing recycling rates and reducing landfill waste.
“I don’t think many McLanahan customers had asked for this, but they found us a supplier we could work with and included it in their package. We didn’t want to have to find our own supplier and add bits into the plant. We were also clear that we wanted to meet the WRAP Quality Protocol [a document that sets ‘end-of-waste‘ criteria for the production of a specific recovered product, such as aggregates, compost, or glass cullet]. This plant does.
“We like the fact that McLanahan is a 190-year-old family business, with a similar philosophy to SunEnviro. Just looking at the quality of the equipment and the fact that they were keen to handle any problem were also big selling points for us.“
“Changes in legislation are increasing interest in what we can offer,“ says Hunter. “There are a lot of operators who aren’t geared up yet for what might be coming. SunEnviro has got ahead of the game, and it’s great to be part of that.“
“We don’t look at changes in legislation as a pain in the neck; we look at them as opportunities,“ concludes Stewart.
