From road

Recycling is a marvellous thing. These days, all kinds of rubbish, rather than going to landfill or the incinerator, is turned into something useful. Now, the roofing industry could be set to benefit from a recycling project that is producing slates from old car tyres.

The rubber tiles have been developed by scientists at Queen Mary University in London working with experts from Crumb Rubber from Plymouth. The project has now been granted funding from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and Steve Waite, project manager for tyres, is confident the tiles will prove popular. ‘We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from contractors interested in this project already,’ he says.

Worldwide, more than 700m tyres go to waste each year and new uses for waste rubber are continually being discovered.

The manufacturing process for the black ‘slate’ tiles involves combining rubber powder from ground down tyres with polypropylene. Each tyre can make 26 tiles, each weighing 500g and comprising 50% rubber.

Waite believes specifiers will be attracted to the new tiles’ green credentials and their competitive price. ‘Most companies now want to fulfil as many of their corporate social responsibilities as possible and using recycled materials helps them do that,’ he says. ‘We’re hoping the rubber tile will be about half the price of slate tiles.’

The tiles are currently undergoing stringent flame tests before they are issued with a fire certificate. They will also have to pass further tests to receive a BBA certificate. Crumb Rubber and WRAP are hoping they will be ready for use on site from April next year.

‘The tiles have been tested on six demonstration roofs and we have potential clients lined up to test them in a site situation,’ says Waite. ‘We are looking at the moment to have the slates accredited and entering the market by April 2008. This will be a unique product which will also be lighter than a lot of rival tiles so it has a lot going for it.’

His confidence is shared by David Young, managing director of Crumb Rubber’s parent company Airport Business Centre. ‘We’ve had significant interest in this slate,’ he says. ‘This has included builders meeting the demands of the sustainable building market, as well as developers of green schemes.’

Young adds: ‘People seem keen to see a British slate made from recycled materials which meets British standards. We have commissioned professional market research and it shows very positive UK-wide feedback from the new housing and replacement roofing markets.’

But some construction experts are more sceptical. ‘Several US and Canadian manufacturers have tried and failed to launch them over here recently,’ says Chris Thomas of the Tiled Roofing Consultancy. ‘This is the first time a UK manufacturer has tried but they haven’t proved popular before with contractors because they are too flexible.

‘They suffer in high winds from uplift which can cause noise when they slap back down. In theory it should be a good idea to recycle rubber into tiles but no one has got it right yet.’ cm