Grants topping £405,000 have been awarded to research and development projects in wood reuse and recycling.
The funding will come from the Waste and Resources Action Programme – WRAP. Its first round of grants, to be released over two years, are ultimately aimed at boosting the volumes of wood and wood products recycled in the UK.
TRADA Technology’s project to recycle preservative-treated timber such as railway sleepers and telegraph poles will receive £139,980, while its review of the scope for wood recycling in the M62 corridor will get £40,570.
Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College is granted £139,980 towards developing protocols for the sampling and measuring of contaminants in recovered wood as a raw material for the panel board industry.
BFM Ltd, London, gets £97,595 to investigate recycling options in furniture, while the BRE is granted £294,500 towards a recycling study of timber and plastic windows.
Rick Wilcox, secretary of the Wood Recyclers Association, said: ‘WRAP’s decision to provide funding for R&D projects in the wood recycling sector is very welcome. Traditionally, the industry is very entrepreneurial and this support will underpin our efforts to increase recycling levels and develop new markets.’
WRAP’s targets include doubling wood packaging recovery to 350,000 tonnes a year by the end of 2003/4 and achieving 40% recycling and re-use of construction and demolition wood waste a year, requiring an additional 100,000 tonnes to reach 480,000 tonnes.
WRAP receives £40m funding over three years from the Department of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, (DEFRA), the DTI, the Scottish Executive and the National Assembly for Wales.
A second round of funding will be launched in March.
