Case study

One example of the active approach we are taking to carbon reduction is British Gypsum’s Emerald Award. The awards have been devised to acknowledge and promote World Class Environmental Performance within the company. In total, the 13 projects entered into the 2010 awards reduced landfill waste by 5,000 tonnes and CO2 emissions by 2,500 tonnes per annum, as well as saving British Gypsum over £450,000 per year.

 

The overall winner of the British Gypsum’s 2010 Emerald Award was the Robertsbridge Leachate Recovery Project in East Sussex. Robertsbridge Works manufactures plasterboard construction products from synthetic, natural and recycled gypsum materials.

 

Leachate is water (usually from rain) that percolates through waste material in a landfill site. As the water moves through the waste, it picks up contaminants from the waste material, such as sulphides, and as a result must be collected and properly disposed of, to avoid transferring the contaminants to the environment. In 2008, around 190 road tankers worth of leachate were removed from site.

 

Following successful production trials, leachate is now used within the plasterboard manufacturing process on the Robertsbridge site as a direct substitute for reservoir water. The project included the collection, pumping, storage and mixing of leachate with raw water, where possible utilizing existing pipe work to divert leachate water from the landfill sites back to the manufacturing site.

 

The benefits include:

• Reduction of waste off site by 2,000 tonnes per annum

• Reduction in water abstracted from a nearby drinking water reservoir by 2,000 tonnes per annum in the “water stressed” south east of England.

• Annualised savings of over £100,000 through reduction in waste disposal costs

 

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