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There is an old saying that one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure - that is certainly the case for Derbyshire firm Ward Recycling.

The company has turned the business of recycling waste into a multi-million pound concern - and today, it is the largest firm of its kind in the East Midlands.

It started out from humble beginnings almost 80 years ago. First established in 1940, Ward began as a single site scrap metal dealer with just a handful of staff based in Swadlincote, Derbyshire.

Today, it has six sites across the East Midlands, including five in Derbyshire, employing more than 400 people. And the business has an annual turnover approaching £150 million.

Growth has been particularly aggressive in recent years. For example, in the last five years alone, the firm has seen its turnover increase by 40%, with a significant surge in the last year of almost 20%.

But throughout the decades, Ward has remained an independently-owned family business. Today, the fourth generation of the Ward family are at the helm.

The company offers a vast array of recycling services. This includes metal processing and the recycling of industrial, business and household waste.

It offers skip hire, car recycling, waste electrical equipment processing and recycling, hazardous waste management, the secure destruction of confidential waste, site services, facilities management and land remediation.

Continual investment in the business has played an important part in Ward’s recent growth, developing waste management and recycling techniques that save its customers money and help them meet and exceed their recycling targets.

It has also not been afraid to branch out into different areas of the recycling sector. An example of this is WARDRobe, a new textile recycling service based at Ilkeston. The aim of this arm of the business is to recycle around 10,000 tonnes of textiles a year.

The firm has also got in on the exporting act. Last year, the company opened a dedicated deep sea export dock facility at Associated British Ports (ABP) in Immingham, Lincolnshire.

The dedicated port facility enables the deep sea shipping of metal cargo to destinations around the world.

The Immingham site has opened up new destinations and customers for Ward in terms of buying and selling scrap metal.

It has allowed the business to trade with customers in new countries, as well as helping it to better serve existing ones in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China.

Among all of this, Ward has also found the time - and money - to create new offices for its staff at Ilkeston, following the £1 million conversion of the former Albion Leisure Centre.

In terms of the future, Ward’s strategy continues to be focused around investment and innovation. Among its recent investment announcements has been in its fleet of vehicles.

In order to cope with demand for its recycling services, the firm is spending more than £2 million on a range of environmentally efficient vehicles, including articulated lorries, wheeled tippers, wheelie bin and skip lorries.

Transport manager Min Bawa said: “We’ve seen an influx of metal recycling and waste management work over the past 12 months and we’re expanding and upgrading our fleet to more than 120 modern, energy efficient vehicles to meet current and future demand.

“In the past, we have used various subcontractors for moving materials but we’ve decided to further invest to bring much of this work in-house, to be able deliver a better service to our customers.”

Commercial manager Donald Ward said: “We’ve had a great year of growth and we have lots of exciting things in the pipeline for 2019.

“As well as the new range of articulated lorries, we are investing in new metal shredding equipment and the expansion of our metal export capabilities at Immingham dock.”

However, another investment decision that may need to be made soon is a bigger trophy cabinet.

Since the turn of the year, the business has won several awards, including a double success at the Derby Telegraph Business Awards, which included the much coveted Company of the Year title.

The other award was for Employer of the Year. Ward runs a number of reward and incentive schemes for its staff. They include an ‘Employee of the Month’ scheme and recognition rewards for long servers.

The firm operates its ReWards scheme, which sees team members earning rewards for passing on business development leads that turn into contracts. Staff are also rewarded for successful recruitment referrals.

Mr Ward said: “This year was the first time we’d entered the Derby Telegraph Business Awards. Just to be shortlisted as finalists was a proud achievement for us.

“Winning the Employer of the Year and Company of the Year categories is a testament to the phenomenal hard work of the team here at Ward.”