WRAP Funding Plasterboard Recycling Project

Gypsum Recycling UK and NTFW/Skipaway have been awarded contracts worth £138,000 (US$241,000) and £192,000 (US$336,000), respectively, to carry out trials in different parts of the country. The goal of the trials will be to demonstrate and evaluate the possibilities of collecting plasterboard waste, and explore how the collected waste can be passed through the recycling chain and avoid landfill sites.

If the test program is successful, it is estimated that as much as 30,000 metric tons of waste plasterboard per year could be collected through this method.

GRUK’s trials will take place simultaneously at around 14 household recycling centers covering a range of geographic, demographic, social economic and seasonal variations. GRUK will process the plasterboard collected to extract the gypsum; the material will be re-used in plasterboard manufacture and other applications.  The project trials will run until October 2006.

The NTFW/Skipaway project, due to finish by the end of this year, will be undertaken simultaneously at around nine HRCs in Kent, UK. In addition to the collection trials, the contractor will also assess a range of equipment available to process the waste, and will trial the use of the recycled gypsum in civil engineering applications.

Julian Cope, WRAP Material project manager, Plasterboard, said, “At the moment, little is known about the potential for collecting plasterboard and gypsum waste from HRCs in the UK, although evidence from Europe suggests that the quantities involved could be quite significant.  These trials are therefore essential to improve our understanding, and we are confident that they will spark interest amongst many other local authorities.”