Neck-break leads to bottle crushing idea

Breaking your neck doesn't usually bring silver linings but for John Nickel-Lean, a skiing accident in which he was paralysed led him to start a new business.

The former Whitehead Mann headhunter, who came up with the idea for the machine while lying in his hospital bed in Canada and listening to a lorry collecting bins of glass bottles. Mr Nickel-Lean, who recovered after surgeons remade his neck with titanium, raised a £1m to invest in his creation and the first shipment of the Minima arrived last week in Yorkshire from China.