Recycled ceiling tiles used throughout UK hospital

More than 80,000m of Armstrong's Bioguard Plain mineral ceiling tiles have been used throughout the new Peterborough City Hospital.

Thanks to the off-cut recycling scheme operated by Armstrong Ceilings, some 8,000m or 32 tonnes of the manufacturer's tiles - equivalent to the weight of two double-decker buses - have been saved from landfill.

Architects Nightingale Associates approved the use of the Bioguard Plain mineral tiles, which contain fungicides and biocides that actively combat harmful fungi, mould and mildew, yeasts and bacteria, throughout the new 612-bed major acute hospital - the largest element of the GBP335m Greater Peterborough Health Investment Plan.

The new 95,000m Peterborough City Hospital comprises the acute hospital and a 98-bed mental health unit on the site of the Edith Cavell Hospital (ECH) and a 39-bed City Care Centre on the former Peterborough District Hospital (PDH) site.

Both ECH and PDH remained operational throughout their respective builds.

This private finance initiative (PFI) project, backed by Brookfield, HSBC and Macquarie Bank, is due for completion in October 2010 after more than three years on the 14-hectare site.

Ceilings installer Roskel Contracts, an Omega (Armstrong-approved) contractor, has been on the acute site for 18 months, combining a standard installation with the logistics of running its first off-cut recycling scheme.

This proved challenging because of the large number of relatively small rooms; the 4,500 different rooms each required three handovers (after the initial trim, installation of the ceiling grid and service tiles and then, finally, the tiles themselves).

This totalled 13,500 handover processes, approximately one every 15 minutes, although this was fine-tuned down to blocks of rooms.

Roskel's team filled wheelie bins with pre-sized bags inside, which, when full, were wheeled round to a secure facility.

When this was full, the contents would be removed by articulated truck to Armstrong's plant in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, where they were recycled.

According to Chris Fairhall, procurement manager for Brookfield Construction UK, said: 'The performance of a product needs to first meet the specification and our contractual obligations, then it needs to be competitively priced.

'Being able to recycle it is an added benefit but recycling is an important factor as the environment and sustainability is driving more and more projects.

'Ceiling tiles are one of the building materials that suffer particular damage and the waste would usually go straight to skip.

'But, in this case, Armstrong's tiles were actually going back and being recycled.

'This meant we didn't have to pay the same amount of landfill tax, so there was a cost saving to us as well as the environment,' added Fairhall.

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