Displaying items by tag: UK

UK: Wastecycle's recycling facility in Colwick, Nottinghamshire is now one of the largest in the UK after an expansion of the site. By acquiring seven acres of property, which the company previously leased, and buying an additional four acres, Wastecycle has extended its site to nearly 20 acres.

"It's an exciting time for us because this expansion provides us with the platform we need to reach the next stage of growth as a company," said Financial Director Nathan Cole. "Over the long term, we plan to use the additional land to expand our extensive recycling and resource management activities. This will help us broaden the services we offer our customers while improving the quality and sustainability of the recycled products we manufacture."

The company has also completed an expansion of its main office to accommodate its growing workforce. After a 20% growth in staff 2015, it now employs almost 300 people across its Colwick site and its two sites in Leicestershire. "Ensuring our teams are comfortable in their working environments is very important to us because, not only does it increase productivity, but it also creates positive morale," said Cole. "Larger premises also provide the opportunity to open up new jobs, while improving the quality of service we can provide to customers."

Wastecycle separates 500,000t/yr of waste, including 18,000t/yr of recycling from 126,131 homes in the Nottingham City Council area. Some of the waste is turned into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for use at cement plants. It also sorts through the rubbish of thousands of businesses across Nottinghamshire, runs a skip hire service and operates a wallboard recycling facility, which it developed with British Gypsum.

In 2014, Wastecycle's turnover increased to Euro42.8m from Euro35.9m in 2013. In 2015, it won four awards, including a bronze environmental best practice accolade at the Green Apple Awards in November 2015. It was recognised for the success of its wallboard recycling scheme, which has prevented more than 30,000t/yr of wallboard from reaching landfill.

UK: Breedon Aggregates plans to acquire Hope Construction Materials for Euro480m. In a statement, Breedon said that the transaction would create 'the UK's leading independent producer of cement, concrete and aggregates.'

Hope has 160 operational sites, including a cement works in Derbyshire, five quarries and 152 concrete plants. In the first six months of 2015, Hope sold 1.6Mt of cement, 4.7Mt of aggregate and 2.3Mm3 of concrete, generating revenue of Euro407m and underlying earnings before interest depreciation and amortisation of Euro52.8m.

The acquisition is conditional upon UK competition authority approval and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2016. "This acquisition is well-timed, with UK construction output forecast to expand by around 15% over the next four years and volumes of all our major products expected to grow strongly," said Peter Tom, Breedon Executive Chairman. "We are confident that we will be able to continue delivering significant value for our shareholders in the coming years, with an even stronger platform for growth."

The Chief Executive of Aggregate Industries, part of LafargeHolcim, Pat Ward, will take over as Breedon Chief Executive early in 2016.

UK: Hanson UK's CEO Patrick O'Shea will step down in December 2015 after eight years at the head of the construction materials business. He will be succeeded by Daniel Cooper, who is currently Northern Regional General Manager for Hanson Australia.

O'Shea joined Hanson plc in 1990 and held a variety of senior financial and operational roles before becoming Chief Executive of Hanson Pacific in 2001. In 2003 he added responsibility for continental Europe to this role, becoming Chief Executive of Hanson Continental Europe and Asia. He was appointed Managing Director of Hanson Aggregates UK in June 2004. When Hanson plc was acquired by HeidelbergCement in 2007, O'Shea was appointed CEO of the combined UK business, which brought together Hanson's aggregates and building products operations with HeidelbergCement's Castle Cement business, to form Hanson UK.
His tenure encompassed the longest and toughest recession ever experienced in the construction industry.

"It's not been easy, but I have enjoyed the challenge of leading the company through this difficult period and into a position where I believe we are well placed to take advantage of the opportunities which lie ahead,' said O'Shea. "I am confident that the company has a bright future and I look forward to watching it prosper and grow."

Daniel Cooper joined Pioneer Concrete in Australia in 1993. Hanson acquired Pioneer in 2000 and Cooper has held a number of operational, commercial and customer service management roles, including Regional General Manager for Western Australia.

UK: A pair of peregrine falcons nesting in a disused building at the former Westbury Lafarge Cement plant in Wiltshire will be protected even if the buildings are demolished, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Owners of the site, Tarmac (now part of CRH), recently submitted a Prior Notification to Wiltshire Council to have the area demolished so that it could be used for other purposes. "We've worked with Tarmac nationally and we're working with them on this to ensure that the birds are not dramatically affected by any development work at the site," said Phil Sheldrake, a conservation officer from the RSPB. "They don't have a nest in the chimney, but they are nesting in another building on the site for the first time this year and have been roosting on the chimney. We have to make sure that if the buildings are demolished we can provide an alternative for them, such as a nest box that could be placed close to the site until a new building is built." Peregrine falcons are strictly protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act after their numbers went into steep decline in the 1980s.

US/UK: Hanson Building Products has changed its name to Forterra following its recent divestment by HeidelbergCement. The rebranding brings with it a new logo to the established business, which has a trading history spanning back several decades, while its wide selection of products and services will be unchanged.

The company, which operates in North America and the UK, makes a diverse range of concrete and clay building products. Structherm, the subsidiary that specialises in external wall insulation, is unaffected by the rebranding. Forterra employs approximately 5000 people, 1600 of whom work in the UK in 18 manufacturing facilities and its new Northampton based head office.

"The Hanson name and logo may have been replaced by Forterra, but this is a change of branding only," said Stephen Harrison, UK managing director of Forterra. "We remain committed to the excellence and integrity recognised by our customers and the construction industry in general and we want to use this rebranding to reinforce our values. We will continue to be a leading building products manufacturer in the UK and a key player within the construction industry. As Forterra, our business enters an exciting new era."

The new name is effective immediately and will be implemented across the company's products, services and communications over the coming months. Company emails and web addresses will also change to reflect the Forterra name. The changes only apply to Hanson Building Products, while Hanson Cement, Hanson Quarry Products and Hanson Contracting will all continue to be part of Hanson UK, which remains within the HeidelbergCement Group. There will be no ongoing connection between Hanson UK and Forterra.

Denmark/UK: Vortex has appointed Mespo ApS as its exclusive agent in Denmark. Mespo sells high quality components, machines and customised solutions for powder handling manufacturers like cement producers.

"We are very pleased to add Mespo to our line of representatives," said Laurence Millington, Vortex's director of international business. "Mespo has a great cooperation with many manufactures of powder processing equipment around Europe. With its convenient location in Ringsted on Zealand, Mespo can respond to our Danish customer needs in a short amount of time."

UK: The Westbury cement plant in Wiltshire County, which was constructed in the early 1960s and mothballed in 2009, is now set to be partly demolished. In a bid to attract investors, non-operational parts of the site, including the 122m-high chimney, will be cleared. The structure will be brought down with a series of controlled explosions, according to site owner Tarmac, now part of CRH.

Earlier in September 2015, Tarmac said that it had submitted a prior notice to Wiltshire Council to demolish part of the complex. At present, the site is an 'attraction to trespassers' and is 'a security and maintenance liability.' According to Tarmac management, the demolition will result in reduced trespass and a reduced need for maintenance.

UK: Simon Vivian, Chief Executive of Breedon Aggregates Limited, has been appointed as Chairman of the UK's Mineral Products Association (MPA) for the next two years. He succeeded Bill Brett, effective 1 September 2015. Vivian is the third chairman of the MPA to date to serve from an independent company.

"We are delighted that Simon has agreed to pick up the baton from Bill. His wide industry knowledge and experience will be invaluable to the association as we look to set the agenda for the industry for the next 10 years and respond to the challenges ahead," said MPA Chief Executive Nigel Jackson

The MPA looks out for the interests of the UK's cement producers.

UK: Established UK liquid waste and industrial services tanker specialist, Greens Environmental, has launched a new high vacuum air conveying plant called the iVac.

The iVac is believed to be the only British-made deep vacuum and pressure discharge unit on the market. It was designed to uplift heavy wet and dry industrial materials, including cement, aggregate and powder products and is particularly suitable for product recovery. The iVac has a 16.5m3 capacity tank to maximise payload and can operate with airflow up to 8000cfm (cubic feet per minute) with a vacuum level down in excess of 90%. It also features an automatic filter media cleansing unit to maximise operating time.

Additionally, for the first time, Greens Environmental has made its range of vehicles and equipment available to hire for short, medium and long-term projects, a move made in response to customer demand.

"The iVac is the result of an ambitious year's investment of around Euro280,000 in design and development, culminating in the release of the iVac Series," said Paul Cutter, director of the iVAC project. The tanker will be manufactured in-house, so that the iVAC team can retain full technical control.

"We wanted to make a product that not only met our customers' technical requirement, but made commercial sense to all parties. We have simplified the technical characteristics of the units without compromising on quality or results, which has resulted in much lower manufacturing costs. This cost saving is, quite simply, passed down the line to the client," said Phil Green, director of Greens Environmental.

UK: Axion Polymers has invested significantly in new laboratory and testing facilities to ensure consistent quality of its solid recovered fuel (SRF) products and to satisfy the stringent standards of its technical end markets.

It has installed a laboratory-scale furnace at its large-scale processing facility, Shredder Waste Advanced Processing Plant (SWAPP), in Trafford Park, Manchester to enhance accurate measurement and testing of the physical and thermal properties of its Axfuel® SRF 30, an alternative fuel used by the cement industry, among others.

Axion has also recruited a quality control team working within ISO 9001 operating procedures to conduct in-house product testing, including analysis on critical aspects such as SRF calorific value and chemical composition. Samples are sent on a weekly basis to external laboratories for further testing and verification.

Derived from automotive shredder residue, Axfuel SRF 30 is a sub 30mm-sized mixture of textiles, fibre-fluff, plastic, foam and rubber, with a gross calorific value of 18 - 22MJ/Kg and available in large tonnages.

"We have made this important investment because alternative fuels from waste need to be treated as a product, not as a waste. If SRF is to deliver the fuel benefit and meet the technically-demanding specifications of our end markets, it has to be of consistently high quality so customers can buy with confidence," said Axion director Roger Morton. "By operating within strict quality controls, we can ensure our reliable supply of SRF is produced to exceptionally high standards. As this fuel is sourced from end-of-life vehicles, giving it a second life as an alternative high-energy feed is going to be an attractive option for companies who want to demonstrate their environmental credentials."