March 29, 2024

Centrum Pile Limited – Bucking the trend

The words `concrete’ and `environmentally friendly’ don’t traditionally sit side by side. However, Newark-based specialist business, Centrum Pile Ltd, is bucking the trend and doing all it can to be greener, achieve optimum recycling targets and even help local wildlife.

Centrum’s General Manager, Paul Pendleton, said: “The manufacturing process put in place by Centrum Pile is altogether environmentally responsible and virtually waste-free. The investments made in recent years and the continuous improvement ethos throughout the company has helped Centrum Pile to develop an energy efficient factory that now recycles all waste materials on site.”

The business has also recently received a gold award for its health and safety standards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA), an achievement it is extremely proud of.

Having recently manufactured concrete pile for foundations in developments as diverse as new housing in the Kent town of Faversham to a Lincolnshire coastal wind farm substation, Centrum Pile Ltd really does work across all industries in all areas of the UK.

Other recent projects include a new IKEA warehouse in Peterborough, a stadium leisure complex in York and brand new secondary school in Cambridgeshire.

Established in 1993, Centrum Pile is one of the UK’s leading and most advanced manufacturer of continuously reinforced precast concrete piles, using the most advanced concrete, distribution, mould, pile joint and manufacturing technology available. It also has sister companies in Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Poland and currently produces a total of 2.5m piles per year.

The Centrum Pile system is available in various sizes and lengths to suit specific project requirements. All piles are manufactured using the most advanced technology available.

In its bid to be `greener’, Centrum Pile has taken steps to reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the cement content of the concrete by 30% which results in a lower embodied CO2 as well as improved plastic and hardened properties of the concrete.

This design achieves a durability standard that not only increase’s the life of the foundations due to its resistance to carbonation, chloride and sulphate attack but makes it suitable for practically any ground condition.

Mr Pendleton said: “Not only do we reduce our carbon footprint by consuming 30% less cement but we utilise what is otherwise a waste product from our coal fired power stations.”

Centrum Pile now recycles 100% of waste used on the Newark site that has resulted in an 8% cost saving to the business compared to previous years, and coincides with the company’s recent transition to ISO45001.  

Scrap metal, concrete, electrical equipment, waste oil and waste oil containers, scrap batteries, oil rags, fuel filters, aerosol cans, cardboard, plastic, paper, tin and wood are all waste streams in the business that will be recycled by various waste carriers. One of the waste-management companies, Biffa Plc, will aim to divert as much all of the company’s general waste from landfill as possible, using their network of specialist waste processing facilities.

Centrum Pile also recycles rainwater harvested from the roof of the concrete curing chamber for use in the batching plants. This generates enough sufficient water to manufacture approximately 50% of its concrete without having to use the ‘mains supply’ and saves over 90,000 litres.

A small amount of unused concrete at the end of each production shift is collected by a local company that crushes, recycles and reuses it as Class 1 aggregates for roads or other fill material.

Last year, Centrum Pile announced a new corporate partnership with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, the county’s leading conservation charity run by local people for the benefit of local wildlife. Centrum Pile has also become corporate sponsors of the Beacon Hill Conservation Park in Newark, and a business supporter of the Nottinghamshire Nature Reserves Fund.

Since its inception in the UK in 1993, Centrum Pile has recognised that concern for the environment should be an integral and fundamental part of its business. Looking to the future, Mr Pendleton said: “We have an extremely large manufacturing capacity which is dealing with demand as usual. The housing market appears pretty strong at the moment. The biggest issue recently was a slight slow-down in the run-up to the original Brexit date earlier this year but now businesses appear to be pressing ahead and placing orders as normal.

“As a business, our long term aims are to increase sales and demand, and continue to grow and progress steadily.”


Words: Susan Hampshire