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An innovative project that aims to add £21 million
a year to the Cornish economy and provide hundreds of jobs by tackling
Cornwall's waste mountain has been approved for a second phase of Objective
One funding.
ReMaDe Kernow was set up in 2001 to develop bigger
and stronger markets for recycled materials in Cornwall. Now, following
the success of the project’s first phase, just over £250,000
of Objective One funding has been approved for the next stage of the project.
Michael Poole, director of ReMaDe Kernow, explained that a number of innovative
and exciting projects have already begun under phase one – ranging
from schemes for producing new composite materials using waste rubber
from old truck tyres mixed with plastic and wood waste, to using worms
for large scale composting of household waste.
He said: “We have shown in the first year that are technologies,
and potential markets, sufficient to envisage all the waste plastic and
all the glass in Cornwall being reused. We are working on other priority
materials too, such as paper, cardboard, and compostables. We have shown
that taken together, this kind of market development has the potential
to turn the waste problem in Cornwall, into a huge opportunity.
“ReMaDe Kernow’s task in the next phase is to turn these opportunities,
into facts, creating jobs and prosperity in Cornwall – not at the
other end of England. In the past year, with our partners, we have come
up with some completely new materials, and products made from them, as
well as more mundane solutions such as replacing virgin plastic with a
recycled plastic.
“To achieve this we are working with a wide range of partners –
businesses, entrepreneurs, local authorities and the voluntary sector
– to develop new markets, new products, and new materials. This
involves imagination and innovation, as well as good hard business sense.”
ReMaDe – which stands for Recycling Market Development – is
based on a concept developed in the north-eastern USA that has been extended
to a number of UK projects.
Mr Poole said that in Cornwall a detailed study has predicted that by
2015 more than 550 jobs and £21 million a year could be generated
for the economy by making use of the 400,000 tonnes of rubbish that goes
into landfill sites every year.
He said: “We all know that Cornwall has a waste crisis. Across the
UK waste is rising by some 3% year on year, and higher in some areas.
Landfill is becoming increasingly expensive, and restricted by legislation.
Landfill disposal is the least favoured option around the world, yet Cornwall
is very dependent on it. The solution has to be to use perfectly good
materials more sensibly, and to create less waste in the first place.”
Cornwall’s Waste Working Group, of which ReMaDe Kernow is a project,
is developing the concept of ‘zero waste’, and also has projects
to minimize waste.
In addition to starting a number of specific projects with partner businesses,
ReMaDe’s first phase also involved a study to identify priority
materials for action and the development of strategic plans for each of
these specific materials – enabling ReMaDe to identify long term
projects with real potential.
Mr Poole said: “Now that funding is secure for the second phase,
over the next two years we can take these projects forward and develop
the new and innovative markets for recyclable materials in Cornwall that
we all need to see – indeed, some of which are well underway.”
Mr Poole said the ReMaDe concept has already been tried and tested and
could make an enormous difference to Cornwall’s waste problem. “Strong
stable markets, enabling materials to be used again and again, are the
key to massively increased recycling.”
The ReMaDe Kernow project has been developed by Cornwall’s Waste
Working Group. In addition to a grant of £251,000 from the European
Regional Development Fund approved through Objective One, funding for
the second phase will come from the South West of England Rural Development
Agency, Cornwall Environmental Trust’s Landfill Tax, Cornwall County
Council, and the six District Authorities.
Editors notes:
European
Regional Development Fund (ERDF):
ERDF is one of our four funds that make up the Objective One Programme
for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, which is making £314
million of grant funding available for developing the local economy
between 2000 and 2006. ERDF exists to:
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Help
reduce the gap between development levels and living standards
among the regions and the extent to which least-favoured regions
are lagging behind. |
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Help
redress the main regional imbalances in the European Community
by participating in the development and structural adjustment
of regions whose development is lagging behind, and the social
conversion of regions. |
ReMaDe Kernow
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ReMaDe Kernow is one of the first
environmental projects to achieve funding from the Objective
One Programme. It is also the first of one of several projects
which have been conceived, successfully funded and managed by
the Cornwall Waste Working Group. The CWWG has a diverse membership
from across Cornwall and is dedicated to exploring fully the
issues relating to waste in the county, and to promoting activities
which will lead to integrated waste management and the implementation
of the waste hierarchy in Cornwall (reduce, reuse, recycle). |
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Funders for ReMaDe Kernow are: Objective One
Programme, County Environmental Trust, the Regional Development
Agency (Rural Development Programme), Cornwall Enterprise, Cornwall
County Council, and all the District Councils of Cornwall. |
For further information see the website www.remadekernow.co.uk |
ReMaDe projects:
Projects already underway include:
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Animal Bedding Service - Following successful
trials, ReMaDe are working with Pentreath Industries to establish
a not-for-profit social enterprise that will take waste cardboard,
shred it, and turn it into an animal bedding product suitable
for a range of animals. The proposed service to stables and
smallholdings will include the collection of spent bedding and
composting the used material through vermiculture to produce
a high grade potting compost at Pentreath’s horticultural
operation. |
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Glascrete Trials – ReMaDe have been working with UK
construction firm RMC to carry out a trial using 'Ready Mixed
Glasscrete'. The material, which uses recycled glass as an aggregate,
has passed laboratory trials and been used in its first construction
project – providing hardstanding and bays for the Stithians
vermiculture project (see below). |
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Plastics Reprocessing in Cornwall - Discussions are now approaching
completion on the setting up of a plastics reprocessing plant
for Cornwall. The initial plant will allow 2,500 tonnes per
annum of waste plastic to be reprocessed into plastic wood composites.
These will take the form of decking, and other 'quality' wood
profiles. As the market develops, there is capacity to increase
output significantly – reducing the present need to send
plastic recyclates to the Midlands |
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Stithians Vermiculture Project - A trial using worms to compost
household waste from the Stithians area is now underway. The
trial is being run by local farmer John Thomas and funded by
Kerrier District Council, the Environment Agency and ReMaDe
Kernow. This exciting project will look at the quality of composted
material that can be produced (nutrition and pathogen), and
promotes the principle of dealing with waste at its source.
This encourages local responsibility for waste management, and
will help to reduce the environmental impact associated with
regional disposal points. |
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Cornwall Healthcare Trust – ReMaDe are now established
as a core partners in a project to review opportunities to prevent,
minimise, re-use, recycle and recover NHS waste. The scope of
the project includes market development for NHS waste materials,
procurement, local recycling and reuse. This is a three-year
project, from which a number of ReMaDe projects could develop. |
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Peat Free Horticultural Compost – The material specific
strategic plans completed by ReMaDe in the spring threw up a
range of possible leads, including the need for a peat-free
growing medium for the Cornish horticulture industry. In October,
ReMaDe brought together key players to scope a feasibility study
leading to eventual production. These discussions may also develop
into sales of crushed glass aggregate, and presentation vases
for plants made from recycled glass - typical of the links ReMaDe
is discovering. |
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Recycled Products Display Garden – To help promote awareness
and demand for recycled products amongst the public and horticultural
trade, ReMaDe has commissioned local garden designer Tim Blake
to construct a high profile recycled products garden display,
incorporating decorative glass aggregate, glass aggregate products
and plastic wood composite products. The Duchy of Cornwall Nursery
has agreed to the placement of the mobile display in their nursery
next Spring and further sponsors of the garden are currently
being sought. |
For further information contact:
Michael Poole
ReMaDe Kernow
01579 349316
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Jason Clark
Communications Manager
Objective One Partnership Office
Castle House
Pydar Street
Truro TR1 2UD
Tel: 01872 241379
Fax: 01872 241388
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| jason@dclark.co.uk |
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