The Industrial Symbiosis team in Wales played a facilitative role in bringing together two of its members, so that a previously landfilled foam product is now recovered, reprocessed and reused to build low cost, sustainable housing.
Sekisui Alveo is Europe’s leading manufacturer of high quality cross-linked polyolefin foams. The company’s manufacturing facility in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, produces a range of foam products for the automotive sector including acoustic water shields and instrument or door panels.
Any off-spec or edge trim material is reused in the company’s manufacturing process to minimise waste. However, material that has been through the cross-linking process, cannot be recycled due to its composition and fire-retardant properties and is compacted and landfilled.
Having been a member of the Industrial Symbiosis programme in Wales for over a year, the team was involved in exploring several possible opportunities for reusing this material.
Swansea based Globally Greener Solutions (GGS) and sister company Affresol, have a patented process that takes plastic based waste (destined for land fill) and then mixes the crushed and ground waste with a specialized resin and several other components which causes an exothermic reaction which in turn produces a liquid material (like concrete) that can be poured and moulded in the same way as concrete. The process is low energy cost effective, portable or static. The resulting product can be used in a host of manufacturing processes, including panels for low cost, sustainable housing.
When GGS joined the industrial symbiosis programme, we quickly identified the potential synergy between the two companies and arranged for samples to be exchanged and trials began. GGS then worked with Sekisui Alveo to engineer a new improved waste handling system to prepare the material ready for transport and use at their Swansea manufacturing facility.
GGS is now processing some 400 tonnes or previously landfilled foam waste, while Sekisui Alveo is saving on disposal costs and further improved its environmental performance.
