Branch
Report:
15th November 2006
Sustainable Aggregate
Solutions
On Wednesday 15th
November, the venue for the technical evening was the Glamorgan Arms,
Pontlliw, near Swansea. For the first time for a number of years the South
Wales branch moved its technical night further west to accommodate the
faithful West Wales contingency. 31 branch members enjoyed a presentation
given by branch committee member, Graham Bishop of the Wales Environment
Trust, on ‘Sustainable Aggregate Solutions’. The evening was kindly
sponsored by Bardon Aggregates.
Graham provided a background
on the Wales Environment Trust in that it is a private not for profit
organisation which offers a free consultancy service helping to provide
solutions for a number of waste streams and developing markets for
recyclates. They also have a specific waste coordinator who assists 10
Unitary authorities waste managers achieve best practice solutions for
their municipal waste. The Trust’s aggregate programme is funded by the
Welsh Assembly Government ‘Aggregate Levy sustainability Fund’.
The need for recycling was
reiterated as there is currently a demand for 23 million tpa of aggregate
in Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government Minerals Planning Policy Wales
states that whilst there should be adequate supply of aggregates, natural
resources should be conserved and the use of recycled products maximised in
line with sustainable objectives. Thus planning for mineral extraction
may become more difficult. Combine this with the landfill availability problem
in Wales, the need to divert inert waste into recycling is paramount.
The old British
standards, which did not include the use of recycled aggregates, have been
superseded by the new European Standards, which permit the use of recycled
aggregate. This coupled with customers wanting to improve their green
credentials and being required to hit recycling targets, means that this
area of the market is rapidly expanding.
Examples of the various types
of recycling were presented with actual case studies of successful
operations, which had received information and support from Graham and his
colleagues at the Wales Environment Trust.
