A little later than planned here is the second blog post on our CGPP cleaner production project, in this post I want to share the story of how we got the project up and running. The first thing we needed to do was assemble our project team – in the project application, we had already identified those people within the company who would play a leading role in the project, i.e. Leo Kerley (me), Padraig Hand and Therese McDonnell

1. Project Team, In the main, we kept to the roles envisaged in the project application; with one enhancement: As I had led the development of the project from its initial conception, it was decided that I would continue in this role of project lead to drive the work as the responsible senior manager. This was in addition to the formal contribution envisaged in the project plan which involved me in most work packages.

Therese, who works in the company main office retains the responsibility of coordinating the project, reporting to me as project lead. In essence, Therese is responsible for ensuring that the project is progressing as envisaged and that we adhered to the reporting and other requirements of the funders, the EPA.

Fellow Director Padraig, is charged with leading a number of technical projects involving mechanical and electrical work; in this he is supported by a mechanic and operational staff.

2. External Support In the project proposal we had planned to recruit external assistance in two areas of the project, namely: cleaner production and publicity & communications. Although, we had already identified possible sources of such aid, we put in place a formal process to select these contractors. Firstly, we wanted to get the best support and value for money; secondly there are public procurement guidelines that recipients of grants must comply.

Our proposed budget for assistance with publicity was quite modest and as such did not warrant nor indeed require a tendering process, which would have being completely overkill. We sought a formal proposal for the work from a consultancy which had previously performed work for us and who we know could deliver.

Our acceptance of the quotation brought Epic Marketing’s principal Anne Marie Lambe into the project. Anne Marie was tasked with leading the dissemination and publicity activities and contributing to some market profiling/market research.

The envisaged budget for a cleaner production specialist was sufficient that it required us to undertake a more formal process than above for selecting the contractor. A request for quotation (RfQ) was prepared settling out the requirements for the contractor, the work involved and the likely time commitment. The document also detailed award criteria (which was principally cost related but also considered the capacity of the tenderer). Three prospective contractors were identified and sent the RfQ, there were two responses, from which the winning tender was the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit (CPPU), University College Cork.

Niall Dunphy, Programme Manager with CPPU joined the project team and was tasked with contributing widely to the project in many work packages as well as offering general advise on cleaner production to the project team.

3. Final Thoughts In February, we attended a workshop in Dublin for CGPP grant projects applicants to introduce the programme and in effect to formally kick-off the programme. While a lot of the presentation covered information that was available in the guidance notes it was most useful to hear it explained in more detail with real life examples (and warnings!). The presentation on the GreenBusiness.ie Resource Efficiency programme was also informative and is something that we will most likely avail off. The project is now up and running and a third blog post will follow shortly detailing our experience to date with the project.

Acknowledgement Crumb Rubber Ireland Ltd acknowledges funding for this project: This project is funded as part of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Research Programme 2007–2013 under Phase 5 of the EPA Cleaner Greener Production Programme (CGPP). The programme is financed by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013 and it is administered on behalf of the DEHLG by the EPA

Crumb Rubber Ireland :: Environmental Initiatives Making our products even greener.

6th April  2011

Our cleaner production experiences …

Over the next number of months we will be using this blog to document our experience in an EPA Cleaner Greener Production Programme (CGPP) funded project. We’re new to this type of project and we hope that our experiences will help other companies take the plunge.

And so we take the plunge in blogging… At Crumb Rubber Ireland Ltd. our raison d’être is material recovery and so the very core of our business is green – we collect end-of-life (waste) tyres, process them to produce crumb rubber, the basis for our range of granulate and matting products and two by-products, steel, which is recycled and fibre, which is utilised in equestrian applications. Our activities promote sustainability in two ways: firstly, we contribute to the proper management of a significant waste stream (end-of-life tyres), which in itself is important; and secondly we revalorise these waste tyres producing value-added products that compete head-on with imported products made from virgin materials. Last year, we were awarded the title of National Green Entrepreneur at the Green Awards 2010.

However we know that to be a truly sustainable business, it is vital to continuously improve our performance. For the last eighteen months, we have been working with the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit in University College Cork exploring our sustainability on a number of levels including product eco-innovation, cleaner production and environmental communication.

In this context the announcement of the EPA CGPP Phase 5 presented an ideal opportunity and a focus for us to explore a number of potential cleaner production initiatives. The cleaner production concept requires an integrated preventive environmental strategy, the CGPP explain that “the goal of cleaner greener production is to avoid generating pollution in the first place.” In other words: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

This phase of the CGPP programme provided for a maximum amount of funding available at €25,000 per organisation up to a maximum limit of 75% of project costs incurred. While this was never going to facilitate a large initiative, it seemed to us to be the right scale for some of the ideas we were exploring. Over a period of a couple of weeks, we put together an application and a budget and made an application using the online tools provided (which were quite easy to use) and then we crossed our fingers!

The project is entitled Eco-efficiency & Upcycling in Crumb Rubber Manufacture and the planned work involves improving the eco-efficiency of the crumb rubber production through: (i) more efficient (particularly in terms of energy) separation and cleaning of steel by-product, and (ii) up-cycling the rubber dust to a high value product. Over the next couple of posts we will describe the start-up of the project.

Acknowledgement

Crumb Rubber Ireland Ltd acknowledges funding for this project: This project is funded as part of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Research Programme 2007–2013 under Phase 5 of the EPA Cleaner Greener Production Programme (CGPP). The programme is financed by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013 and it is administered on behalf of the DEHLG by the EPA.