Business Awards: Staffordshire County Council Highways

GREEN, green, and ever onwards going greener still – that's Staffordshire County Council's highways arm.

Since winning The Sentinel's Michelin Tyre-sponsored Environmental Business Award earlier this year, the organisation has been trying to do better, and has already been nominated for the current awards.

Its latest initiative is sending all the sand and silt it pumps out of roadside drains to be mixed with green waste for composting.

The move came with the introduction of legislation which means that water sucked from such drains and gullies can no longer be jettisoned into landfill.

Instead it has to be tankered into water treatment plants to have all tyre rubber, oil, fuel and other pollutants removed.

"The aim of the legislation is to ensure that no pollutants can, ultimately, end up in a watercourse," said Andy Ward, innovation development manager of Enterprise – which works in partnership with the county on highway maintenance.

"Our solution was to open a centre at Stone, which also cuts down lorry movements, where gulley suckers from across Staffordshire go to empty their loads.

" Separated waste water is then sent to Severn Trent's treatment works."

"And there is a good chance that, once turned into compost, some of the residue returns to the county for use in local parks and gardens."

On another environmental front, Staffordshire pioneered on-the-spot recycling of worn out footpaths – using mobile units to 'refresh' the material used in blacktop footpaths and minimising transport costs and use of new material.

And it was practical development of that technique which helped the department win last year's award.

As a result some 2,500 tonnes of asphalt and stone were re-used in the county last year, cutting out 800 lorry journeys and cutting carbon emissions by around 1,600 tonnes.

Staffordshire has an ambitious target of reducing its overall carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 – and this year managed eight per cent of that.

"Winning the award, and the publicity gained as a result, have had a very positive effect in a number of ways.

"Sustainability is high on most councils' agendas and winning certainly lifted our profile on that score, giving us enhanced green credibility when tendering for work.

"We presently have a machine on a two week trial near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and we have recently carried out similar trial contracts in Cornwall.

"In Staffordshire, meanwhile, we have just commissioned our second machine which will help us double the amount of aggregate we recycle here to 5,000 tonnes in the next 12 months."

Being part of an award-winning team has also benefited Staffordshire Highways' partners. RSL, the small Leicestershire engineering firm which makes the aggregate recycling machinery, is awash with new work. Its latest deliveries include a static machine for a major quarrying business in Bedfordshire, and one for a local authority in Barcelona where visitors will soon be taking the tourist trail on greener pavements.

For more information and to enter the Business Awards, click here