Fareham-based national waste firm pays back £390k furlough money

CSG, which operates waste processing facilities throughout the UK, paid back the cash the company finished the year in a healthy financial position.

Managing director Neil Richards said: ‘Throughout the pandemic, our priorities have been to protect the vulnerable, protect our people and protect the business.

‘The initial uncertainty of the first national lockdown and a severe downturn in some businesses saw us furlough a number of employees between May and July 2020.

‘However, as an essential service, most of our teams continued to work, carrying out domestic and industrial waste collection, processing and recycling. This business is all about its people and the performance of those people led to a significant turnaround in the second half of the year.

‘We are not out of the woods yet, but through the hard work of CSG’s staff and the diversity of the business, we were in a position to repay the £390,000 we claimed through the furlough scheme.

‘As a family-owned company, the CSG ethos is clearly focused on supporting its people and the wider society, and we are proud to be able to pay back this money so it can be re-invested by the government where it is most urgently needed.’

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CSG was founded as a one-man sewage collection business in rural Hampshire more than 85 years ago and now employs a national workforce of nearly 550 people.

The company, which has 26 other sites across the UK, is one of the largest privately-owned industrial and domestic environmental waste management groups in Britain. The business works on the goal of diverting waste from landfill, recovering and recycling as much material as possible.

Neil added: ‘I cannot praise the CSG team highly enough for the overwhelmingly positive and proactive way they have faced the pandemic. As a result of their dedication and commitment, the business continues to support its valued customers in a Covid-safe environment.’

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