ESK BUILDING PRODUCTS

Sustainability of building materials is becoming one of the most important issues for architects and specifiers. Whilst the production of calcium silicate bricks has relatively little effect on the environment compared to many other methods of brick manufacture, at Esk Building products we continue to look at practical ways by which we can reduce this effect even further.

In all brick manufacture there is waste. In the production of calcium silcate products much of this waste comes as a result of the high levels of quality control for all our bricks, including commons. Esk Building Products is using methods to reprocess this waste. The rejected products are stockpiled to be crushed. The resulting "brick grog" is used in place of natural sand in the production of common bricks. This process creates a high quality, very economical common brick with all the normal ecological advantages of calcium silicate products.

Here at Esk we are constantly evaluating various methods of recycling sand and waste that cannot be used for brick manufacture, to form a "recycled aggregate”. Part of this evaluation is looking at how to recycle an old calcium silicate brick waste landfill.

Reclaiming and landscaping after extraction is part of the planning permission requirements for extraction of sand from our own onsite reserves. Sand and lime is also brought in from two other sources, both being large, reputable companies, with well established environmental and sustainability policies. To minimise the detrimental effects of transporting sand and lime over long distances, red sand is sourced from a very local source to the factory and white sand is sourced from the nearest available supply. Lime is sourced from the nearest supplier who can provide the required product specification and has a proven environmental and sustainability policy.