Our Changing Environment

Sustainability

Hambleside’s commitment to sustainability through the careful design and selection of raw
materials for its products to ensure an extended service life, coupled with the recycling of
production waste, results in the continued re-usability of the original fossil based material.
This commitment has been achieved after a detailed review of production methodology.

Our Production and Recycling Processes

One result of the review was that the practice of sending waste materials to landfill no longer could be an acceptable part of Hambleside’s production process and a commitment was made to reduce it. But to drop those dated practices required substantial investment and a huge input from its staff, who had to be prepared to accept and understand the changes to traditional working practices required to achieve it.

Consequently, the Group can recycle virtually all of the waste materials which arise from its various production processes.

In 2001, prior to this commitment, the Group was sending over 900 tonnes per annum to landfill. By 2008 the target, is to reduce it to 3 tonnes. This includes all packaging, pallets, other ancillary materials and production waste - equivalent to about the same level of waste arising from an average domestic household.

Hambleside also examined carefully the service life expectancy of its product range, to seek to ensure that they had a long life cycle, thereby reducing the need for product replacement. For example, the Insulator In Plane 45 rooflight products have a service life expectancy of 45 years, the Dryseal flat roofing system is guaranteed for 25 years, the FiberTite roofing system has a 30+ year service life as do the Dry Fix valley systems. Many of the products within our range now include an element of recycled material and in certain cases this can be as high as 30%. This forms part of the Group’s policy in meeting the requirements of local authorities for increasing use of recycled materials in newly manufactured products.

In 2007, Hambleside became the first GRP manufacturer in its industrial sector to voluntarily accept responsibility for recycling its products at the end of their service life.