News
New soil from recycled waste for barren steelworks
4 March 2010
The multi-million pound regeneration project of a 200-year-old steelworks “wasteland” has combined recycled green waste with post-industrial slag and colliery spill to create 11 hectares of new landscape.
The works in Ebbw Vale, South Wales combined green compost - taken from households in the local region of Blaenau Gwent - with colliery spill and basic steel slag to make 100,000 tonnes of its “own soil”. The method produced two types of soil suitable for either grassland or woodland.
The project - a partnership between the Welsh Assembly government and Blaenau Gwent Council - is the location for new developments including a hospital, post 16 education facility, leisure centre, theatre and up to 720 new homes.
The Works project director Richard Crook said: “After 200 years of industrial activity on the former Ebbw Vale steelworks, natural soil cover had been lost. The entire site was a wasteland, devoid of vegetation and covered in of slag and colliery spoil where little could grow.”
Steel slag was once an unwanted by-product of steel making but since ways of recycling it have been discovered, it has become a highly valued fertilizer in gardens and farms; as well as being used to make high performance concrete.
Deputy minister for housing and regeneration Jocelyn Davies said: “The Works is one of the most ambitious regeneration projects ever seen in Wales and a leading example of sustainable development in practice. Virtually everything on the site has been recycled – from the steel in the reinforced concrete to the concrete itself which was crushed to be reused on site.
"We want to make The Works at Ebbw Vale a future carbon neutral site, so to find out we are well on our way to this by recycling everything on site is great news."
For more information please visit: http://www.mrw.co.uk/page.cfm/action=Archive/ContentID=1/EntryID=6356
