A DORSET waste management company are hoping to extend their recycling scheme across the country. 

Blandford-based J & G Environmental collect and recycle waste from more than 2,000 companies, including thousands of tons of discarded corrugated cardboard.

Since last year the company have been turning the waste cardboard into bededing for horses and other animals.

More than 700 of the 20kg bales, called JeeGee Bedding, were snapped up in the first few months of production.

Using custom-built cutting and shredding equipment, the company now process and bale cardboard for stables and equine centres across Dorset.

Among their customers are Matt and Emma Goss-Custard, owners of Holwell-based Honeybuns.

The firm’s cardboard waste is taken away by J&G workers, processed and returned as bedding for the couple’s horse Bee and pony Molly.

Mr Goss-Custard said: “We have lots of boxes for ingredients, and we get it back for bedding.  Once we use it as bedding, it goes on the dung heap and we use it in the garden at the back of our Bee Shack café and shop.  The food from the garden is used in our shop.”

“We recycle everything that we can.  It is not always easy.  It took us a long time to find someone who could take away all the plastic.”

J&G Environmental is now considering increasing production and marketing the product nationally.  General manager John Haines said: “There’s real enthusiasm for this product which has a lot of advantages.

“It’s dust-free, more absorbent and cheaper than traditional animal bedding like straw and wood shavings and it’s biodegradable.

“As far as we’re concerned it’s a classic recycling success with big commercial appeal.”

The bedding is also suitable for the game and poultry rearing industries and for use with agricultural livestock.