A pioneering Wolverhampton company which recycles TVs into glass giftware has won a top award for innovation.

Encapsulated Waste has won the Barry Fox award for innovation at the Making Innovation Real event, held at Coventry Technocentre.

The firm developed and patented a thermal recycling process which will help local authorities across the UK deal with the recently introduced Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive which prevents TVs being dumped in landfills.

Managing director Jason Barker and director Julian Doherty are now using the process which absorbs harmful gases and recycles the large amount of glass found in TVs into a line of giftware called CopperSwirl.

Mr Barker said: "This is a major issue for the UK, especially when you think it would take a million square foot warehouse, packed to the rafters, to store all the TV sets in the West Midlands.

"With landfill and incineration no longer an option, local authorities and businesses are starting to look elsewhere for the solution.

"The CopperSwirl range is selling well, but this is just a spin-off from our main goal which is to offer a cost- effective and rewarding environmental solution to the new directive."

Last year the company received £10,000 from the Innovation Networks programme funded by Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund. AWM deputy chairman Norman Price with Encapsulated Waste's Jason Barker, managing director, and Julian Doherty, director