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The ways in which we live and work affects the environment continuously. As we become more and more aware of the damage that is being inflicted on the planet, our attitudes are changing and there is greater emphasis on recycling.
This attitude is no different within Tayside Contracts' Construction Division where we take environmental issues very seriously and are conscious of the impacts our operations have on the environment.
In 2004 we took the decision to focus our attention on the waste management side of our business and in particular look at how we were set up to deal with all the varied construction wastes produced, the processes employed and the number of sites operated.
A primary objective was to ensure we had sufficient sites strategically set up throughout the Tayside area. This would enable us to deal with all the waste we generate in the most cost effective manner. Click here to see the map which shows our 5 recycling centres, 4 transfer stations, 2 landfill sites and 2 gulley waste treatment sites.
The recycling centres are the sites where we tip our construction wastes which generally consist of concrete, brick, aggregates, asphalts and soils and are defined as inert wastes. These wastes are then processed using our recently purchased plant to produce recycled materials suitable for reuse back in our construction projects.
Transfer stations are sites where waste materials can be temporarily stored before being moved to either a recycling centre or landfill site at a later date. These sites give us greater flexibility for tipping waste when working in remote locations or when a recycling centre is closed.
The landfill sites are where we tip all the unusable waste materials generated from our construction projects and or recycling centres. This material is generally heavily soil bound and has no real use in construction works.
The gulley waste treatment facilities are used for tipping the waste brought in by the gulley tankers which you will have no doubt seen out cleaning in our streets. The highly contaminated waste undergoes a very clever and natural cleaning process which uses reed beds to extract the harmful contaminants from the waste and produce clean water which in turn is reused by the tanker.
Over the years we have moved on considerably in terms of recycling and this short introduction you will see how we have now successfully set up numerous sites throughout the Tayside area which gives us a sound foundation from which to grow our waste management business and move from strength to strength.
As a measure of our successful implementation of this initiative we set ourselves a target to process and sell 32,000 tonnes of recycled materials from Jan – Dec of 2006. By Octocer 2006 we had exceeded this having sold 58,000 tonnes.
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Knowledge Transfer Partnership
