Environmental Technology Firms Give London Thames Gateway The Green Light

With demand and supply wrapped up, London Thames Gateway is seeing a surge of environmental technology companies open on its doorstep. This new cluster of green companies is likely to be joined by many more. We find out why...

Something interesting is happening in London Thames Gateway; in the past year, companies specialising in alternative energy and energy efficiency, waste technology, resource management and material recovery from the built environment are increasingly seeking to locate in the region.

Since identifying the economic opportunity for the region in targeting the sector, Gateway to London has been actively marketing the proposition, and is handling a wide range of projects. Building strong networks within the sector has been a priority from the outset, enabling Gateway to London to offer real insight and build a considerable knowledge base which works to ensure that not only are we responsive to market trends, but also, that all client support and promotion work is efficient and completely relevant. This work is vital in securing successful projects and ultimately jobs.

London is home to the UK's largest resource recovery opportunity, with materials recovery and reuse being the speciality of several firms, complementing many of the manufacturers already based here.

London Thames Gateway is due to grow considerably in the next few years with up to 160,000 new homes planned, all producing their own garden and food waste, as well as scrap TVs, cars and furniture. The current average household recycling rate for London is only 20.7 per cent, so a solution needs to be found for all this extra waste.

So, how will all the new homes impact on other recycling industries? The recently approved plans for Barking Riverside, one of the biggest strategic housing projects in the Thames Gateway, includes a state-of-the-art on-site recycling plant so that all materials excavated on the site can be re-used in the new development.

The Olympic Park in Stratford has been earmarked as the potential site for a wind turbine, and the Olympic Delivery Authority has already promised that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the ‘greenest' yet. The Authority has also promised that 90 per cent of demolition material on site is to be reused or recycled, and that at least 20 per cent of materials used in permanent venues, associated works and the Olympic Village be recycled. 

Organic materials account for 33 per cent of all municipal waste, and as collection systems improve, so too does the demand on processing capacity. Veolia's composting facility in Rainham, Essex processes 70,000 tonnes of green garden waste a year, generating a wide range of products for bioremediation, soil regeneration and landscaping projects, which have already been used in the development of the original Millennium Dome site and Canary Wharf.

It's clear from existing developments, as well as the plans and aspirations for brownfield sites, that London Thames Gateway has the vision to be at the forefront of sustainable construction. Some of the UK's leading developers are already maximising the opportunities and momentum here to create leading-edge projects; for example, the new Sainsbury's store and Millennium Village housing development on the Greenwich Peninsula meet BREEAM's ‘excellent' rating for the environmental performance of the buildings.

The market for material recovery in London is unprecedented. EU directives on End-of-Life Vehicles (or ELV - any vehicle which has gone for scrap) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), along with 8 million consumers, means London needs to disassemble 245,000 vehicles and 370,000 tonnes of WEEE a year - that's a lot of spare metal. London Thames Gateway firms are already seizing the opportunities created by this vast supply of raw material, and several have become world leaders, capitalising on a growing market.

Assisted by Gateway to London, Closed Loop London has chosen the region to house the first facility in the UK to produce both food grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The plant will officially open in May 2008 in Dagenham Dock sustainable industrial park.

London Thames Gateway is also home to Day Group Ltd, whose Charlton site includes a processing plant where waste glass is processed in to higher value aggregate products for use in the construction industry. The site has become a centre of excellence in glass re-processing, and the development of alternative markets for re-processed glass, such as aggregates and shot blasting material. The riverside site provides an ideal transport base to move both primary materials and finished products on and off site.

Recycling isn't just about unwanted cars and household waste, and if we look at recycling construction debris in the region, we find firms taking advantage of the staggering 7 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste created in London every year - levels unseen since the Victorian building boom. At the same time, London's construction sector consumes 29 million tonnes of aggregates per annum, and rising landfill costs, and the UK Aggregates Levy, mean that London needs to address its apparent inability to recycle this material and produce secondary aggregate material.

Day Group's Charlton facility is also home to a construction debris reprocessing plant for producing concrete. They are able to process 200,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste per year - that's almost 1,500 tonnes a day. And this level of reprocessing is needed; London Thames Gateway is home to a significant number of brownfield construction sites, all needing extensive environmental remediation work before they can be redeveloped.

London Remade, the leading waste management and recycling advisors to businesses, have estimated that by 2020 there will be over 14 million tonnes of recyclate to handle, plus another 7 million tonnes that could be used for energy recovery. The capital therefore needs additional reprocessing facilities to meet landfill reduction targets, and reprocessing demands to produce secondary aggregate material.

London Thames Gateway's advantages are clear; some of the world's largest waste management firms are based here and many others, advised by Gateway to London, are actively looking to move in to the region.

In summary, east London is home to some of the most advanced recycling and research facilities in London and the UK. The high availability of students from local universities studying courses specialising in environmental technologies mean there will be a large number of graduates and staff with the right expertise on our doorstep.

The high level of labour availability enables the region to boast the lowest overall employment costs of anywhere in London and one of the lowest in southern England.

The growing cluster is not only bringing jobs and skills to the area, but the companies' proximity to one another is also reducing the impact on the surrounding environment and transport infrastructure, something that's becoming increasingly important as the Mayor's central London Low Emission Zone comes in to force this year.

The London Thames Gateway region has the demand and supply chain wrapped up: a major resource recovery opportunity, a growing recycling industry, world-leading research on waste reduction and reprocessing, a large pool of engineering talent, excellent property options and professional advisers.

By carrying out in-depth research with the view of targeting specific markets, Gateway to London has identified the catalysts that will make London Thames Gateway an epicentre for environmental technologies - locally available waste ripe for recovery, acres of available land, high quality sites and pro-environmental governmental support. Gateway to London is leading the way by magnifying companies' interest in London Thames Gateway. The region is set to house an ever growing cluster of environmental technology companies, further strengthening the economy and playing a key role in reducing the impact of waste and pollution on the environment.