A press release issued by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) discusses a new funding programme to help Welsh businesses lower the amount of waste sent to landfill. The first phase of funding is available to companies tackling commercial food waste, for example food factories and ready meal manufacturers, and waste from construction, demolition and excavation.

For Construction, Demolition & Excavation waste, funding is available to create new recycling or reprocessing facilities or expand and improve existing ones. It also covers collection and mobile processing equipment . Projects planning to install additional processing or separation equipment can also apply.

All facilities must be located in Wales and to be eligible to apply, projects must meet WRAP’s requirements. For this round of applications, a signed contract with WRAP must be in place by 31 August 2009 with the project up and running by 31 December 2010.

Those applying need to demonstrate that their planned project could not go ahead without the funding and that it is commercially viable in the medium to long term.

For more information, and to view the original article visit WRAP’s website or email capital.suport@wrap.org.uk

This picture shows our ‘home’ for the five days of InterBuild. We gave ourselves the challenge of building the stand from reused materials and we did it! The carpet tiles were stripped out of an office, the timber was surplus to requirement and we even reused office partitioning for one of the walls!

This is us receiving our fantastic Green Apple Award and certificate showing the carbon emissions used in our journey to London was partly off-set by the planting of trees.

On Monday morning we went to the House of Commons in London where we were presented with our Green Apple Award. We won the bronze award in the Building and Construction Category.

We were absolutely ecstatic to win this award, and to be recognised and rewarded at such an early stage in the business’s life. The other winners were very impressive, and we were very proud to be included amongst them.

The awards are normally presented by David Bellamy, but he was unable to attend this year. We were however presented with a certificate on his behalf which shows that a tree was planted to offset the carbon emissions we used to travel to the awards!

Thank you to John Bone of HCD Building Control Ltd who has given us two new articles for the Resources page of BuilderScrap.

The articles put the requirements of Building Control Regulations into plain English. Take a look at the articles and see what you think.

If anyone would like to submit an article for consideration of addition to the website, please send them to rco@builderscrap.com

InterBuild 2008 was a fantastic experience for us. As well as launching the site to the industry, we were able to have a look what others are doing in the industry, particularly concerning the environment.

There were several companies promoting green products and businesses, including:

• Green Estate – green roof specialists who create, supply and maintain vegetation on roofs. The benefits of green roofs are lower energy costs, reduced drainage and water storage requirements and increased property values.
• Mark Group – energy saving products for house builders including air source heat pumps, solar electricity and solar hot water heating.
• Smith Bros Ltd (Enviro materials) – Suppliers of Exwood, an eco-friendly material which looks, feels and has many of the same characteristics of wood.
• Monodraught – Heat-Harvester –By sucking hot air in at ceiling level and blasting it back down to floor level the heat harvester can cut energy and heating bills by 50%! They also have other products such as Cool-Phase the passive cooling system
• Sustainable Homes – training and consultancy for sustainable housing
• Durisol UK – the original stay in place wall form system made from 80% recycled wood
• Elmhurst Energy – a provider of accreditation, training and technical support for the creation and lodgement of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs)
• Steico – suppliers of environmentally products, including thermal insulation made from hemp and wood
• Continental Underfloor Heating -more environmentally friendly heating products
• KdB Isolation – provides sustainable insulation solutions

All of these products are aimed at helping the industry reduce it’s effect on the environment. I hope you find this information useful, if you have any questions or comments, please let us know.