WRAP Announces First Aggregates Capital Funding Project For Scotland

Realm Construction Ltd has become the first company to receive capital grant funding from WRAP to increase the production of recycled aggregates in Scotland.

The project is the first to be awarded funding under WRAP’s Scottish Aggregates Programme and will provide washing equipment and infrastructure for an existing restoration and recycling facility at a derelict coal slurry site in Lochgelly, Fife. The project involves washing processed construction, demolition and excavation waste (CD&EW) to create higher value products, including clean single sized stone for pipe bedding and filtration systems. A by-product of the process will be high quality screened soils for landscaping applications.

“The WRAP grant will allow us to increase our production of recycled aggregates by 40,000 metric tons in the first year of operation, along with 60,000 metric tons of screened soils,” says Realm Construction’s managing director Jim Thomson. “Our own construction projects will use a significant proportion, with the remainder being marketed and supplied through Purvis Group outlets for other external projects.”

WRAP is providing £68,118 of support under the interim State Aid clearance approved by the European Commission in March and the project will expand Realm Construction’s production of washed recycled aggregates by 228,000 metric tons over the next five years.

WRAP launched its Aggregates Programme for Scotland, which is aimed at increasing the country’s production and use of recycled and secondary aggregates, in March this year. The program, funded by the Scottish Executive from the proceeds of the Aggregates Levy, is designed to ease pressure on finite primary resources - and on landfill sites - by helping to develop markets for more sustainable alternative materials.

The first Capital Grant Competition held under the program focused on the segregation and processing of CD&E waste to produce recycled aggregates, together with processing of secondary materials such as industrial slag and colliery spoil.

Steve Waite, WRAP’s Aggregates Capital Projects Manager, said: “Recycled and secondary aggregates have the potential to meet 25 percent of Scotland’s needs for construction aggregates within the built environment. Through the capital funding programme, WRAP will help to increase the country’s reprocessing infrastructure and promote a more sustainable approach to resource use.”

WRAP is a not-for-profit company in the private sector, backed by substantial Government funding from Defra, DTI and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.