Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Sports Advancement & Research Co. Ltd (SARCO)

  You are requesting suggestions on waste recycling as a VP of ETRA, a member of the EA task group on tyre recycling and MD of a R&D company which takes the use of scrap tyres from product conception to market I believe that I am well qualified to make constructive suggestions.

  The major problem is barriers to market, which is not only fiscal, market size in relation to the players, and the ability for those players to make a profit.

BARRIERS

  1.  Grants initial R&D through either local or ESPRC works well but is based on a academic time scale not commercial and does not contribute to entrepreneurs or SME's who may be the instigators of the project, nor does it get products to market Universities are encouraged to claim IPR under, the scheme this is wrong when an entrepreneur asks for R&D of a new technology.

  2.  EC funding is very difficult and long winded and does not recognise the part that large companies may play in product development. and national markets as they are excluded from funding.

  3.  LTC's this has recently been considered for changes presently any C/CC projects may require payback to the distributive DB this is not practical, as final technology development and marketing are as expensive as the initial R&D, presently there appears to be no means of distributing the ,100m to be allocated except through WRAP and in our case which is tyre recycling WRAP does not recognise this area to be one which it will grant aid to.

  4.  In house funding, here I can only speak from my involvement within the civil engineering community, all these companies carry out in-house R&D and have substantial budgets, to do so, In many cases they will consider waste re use and disregard it as being to small a market, if they do consider it then the tendency is to only allocate a small budget to the product

development.

  5.  much has been written about LA/Gov procurement, green policies etc which is also applicable but the main problem is availability of funding.

  6.  Banks and venture capitalist do not want to know as in most cases success is not guaranteed and funding is always short term.

SUGGESTIONS

  1.  Most Universities have a commercial arm and are sitting on many potentially successful technologies but lack the means to move these technologies to market, set up a second arm of the ESPRC to fund precisely that, but run on a commercial basis and time scale.

  2.  Instruct WRAP to take on board Tyre/ rubber recycling.

  3.  All such schemes must be payback free to encourage Industry to take onboard the technologies, and by placing commercial people in the two above bodies, market and product feasibility will be seen at an early stage.

  4.  Enter into and fund (including paying ALL participants expenses) a serious of stakeholder dialogues to add to and resolve additional issues.

  I could relatively easily write considerably more on the above as well as cover other salient points but having been at the sharp end of going from theory to market, recognise that these barriers are and should be the committees main focus.

SARCO

2 December 2002
ProductDesignation Use StatusCommentsMarket tonnes
3/20School playgrounds In productionMeets EN1177 96,000
3/20Skate/roller blade areas Fine tuning reqdNo tests reqd No stats
3/20Tennis courts Fine tuning reqd Indicative tests only rated slowNo stats
3/20Basketball courts In productionNo tests reqd No stats
3/20Other hard play sports areas In productionCost effective/EN1177 No stats
3/20Athletic tracks Work needed market/designNo spikes/not tested cannot meet IAAF tolerances Cheap alt for schools
3/20Jogging tracks. In productionNo tests reqd No stats
3/20Cycle tracksIn production No tests reqdNo stats
3/20WalkwaysIn production No tests reqdNo stats
10/40APSP shockpad base . In production
Re-design as two
layer
Meets all performance
requirements
24,000
10/40Football base/shockpad In production
Re-design as two
layer
Meets all performance
requirements
45,000
3/20 high
friction
Special product for FIA/FIM motor race circuits arrestor beds Final trial early
November
Meets EN1177 high friction rating, 72psv FIA will insist on use UK circuits plus 18 overseas
3/20 high
friction
Zebra crossing vehicle
pedestrian interface
R&D reqd
BBA cert reqd
Meets Gov targets reduction of 10% injuries No stats
3/20 thin surfacingSpin off from above Long term use in urban areas Advantages noise, grip cost effective, hard wearing, dispels water Huge market
SAMINo design yetR&D reqd Does not suffer from thermal or reflective cracking. No stats
Sleeping policemenSpin off from above
No design yet
R&D reqdReduction in vehicle shock impact No stats
Bridge AbutmentsPrefabricated blocks to Highways authorities spec Final R&D plus live trialsSmall but lucrative market, needs more work No stats
PaviorsPrefabricated Full R&D + market analysisDIY Market, can be coloured No stats


Road ironwork support blocks
Classified 2 years R&D at NCPE (prefabricated) Full R&DHuge market through builders merchants, No stats
Airport runway landing/stop zonesTheoretical Full R&DResponsibility for smooth landings rests with pilots not AP authority but stopping does. CAA like idea concentrate on friction.
Rapid light transit rail embedment Indicative tests 1999
Suggest 80% success rate
Full R&D
(£ 0.75million reqd) minimum
Large EU Tram market No stats




 
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