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Photographed (from left to right) is Ian West (FHM) and Andy Sharpe (Wastecycle) at the wood recycling area.
Hundreds of tonnes of waste from Nottingham’s council housing improvement programme is being recycled and turned into green energy, thanks to an innovative environmental partnership.
Frank Haslam Milan (FHM) is working with Nottingham-based Wastecycle to ensure that almost 90 per cent of material including wood, brick, plaster, glass and packaging from hundreds of homes is reused, in a huge range of ways.
In total, more than 660 tonnes of material has been recycled
from sites in Bestwood in recent months. New uses for this material
range from the creation of woodchip board to producing a
waste-based environmental alternative to coal, for use at a
cement-making plant.
FHM’s recycling rates in Nottingham are believed to be more
than three times the national average. Currently, 100 per cent of
the waste from its kitchen replacement programme is recycled
through the scheme.
Ian West, FHM Contracts Manager, said: “This scheme makes sense for us, commercially and environmentally.
“It has drastically reduced the amount of waste we send to landfill, and therefore cut the amount of landfill tax we pay. It has also helped us ensure that the environmental impact of our work is kept to a minimum.
“In the case of the kitchen replacement work, we are currently achieving a 100 per cent recycling rate. Our ambition would be to achieve this across the whole programme.”
Through the partnership, material removed from the houses is either separated on site by FHM or transported to Wastecyle’s sorting plant in Colwick to be treated. It is then sent to sites to create new compost, packaging, chipboard, plasterboard, road stones or environmentally sustainable energy.
As well operating in Nottingham, FHM also is also running the scheme in Gedling Borough, where it is delivering a £15 million housing improvement programme in partnership with Gedling Homes.
Andy Sharp, Wastecycle’s Operations Manager, said: “FHM has made a really positive impact through taking a forward-thinking approach and increasing the waste they separate on site. Sending this waste to a landfill site would have a much more detrimental effect on the environment.
“Statistics have shown that the methane produced from waste buried at landfill is more than 20 times more harmful to the environment as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
“So, in taking steps to greatly reduce the amount being sent to landfill sites locally, FHM has made a real impact on the local environment as well as on the homes it is working to improve.”
FHM is currently working in Nottingham to improve thousands of
homes as part of Nottingham City Homes’ £200 million
‘Secure, Warm, Modern’ programme.
