Euro MP urges businesses to turn trash to cash

4.10.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 27th Apr 2006

Liz Lynne visiting NISP in Birmingham

Liz Lynne, Lib Dem MEP for the West Midlands, has urged businesses across the region to look at how they can make money from improving the way they manage their resources, after a visit to the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) in Birmingham.

Liz Lynne met with staff at NISP's head office last Friday, including Peter Laybourn, the national director, to hear about the project's success in getting industries across different sectors to create commercial opportunities from better waste and resource management practices.

Since April 2005, the programme has helped divert more than 860,000 tonnes of waste from landfill sites and created 154 new jobs across the country. It has also helped reduce CO2 emissions by almost one million tonnes - with cost savings of more than £30 million to industry.

Speaking after Friday's visit, Liz Lynne said:

"It's all very well talking about helping the environment, but if you can show companies why it makes good financial sense to reuse resources and by-products, you're far more likely to get them on board."

"By getting companies from different sectors to work together, NISP is creating some amazing commercial and environmental opportunities. I was particularly impressed with a Telford company that is recycling batteries which have passed their sell-by date and turning them into silver bullion."

"I would urge local businesses, no matter what sector they are in, to speak NISP to see if there are similar opportunities for them."

"NISP is a pioneering programme which should serve as model for the rest of the world, and I am delighted that such a ground-breaking initiative is based in the West Midlands."

For further information on NISP call 0121 766 4560 or email enquiries@nisp.org.uk

Notes to Editors

The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) is the first industrial symbiosis initiative in the world to be launched on a national scale and is at the forefront of industrial symbiosis thinking and practice in the UK and the world.

NISP is managed by Birmingham based International Synergies Limited and supported by the Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), formerly Mini-Waste Faraday Partnership.

NISP is part-funded through Defra's Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme.

NISP provides an umbrella in which to support, manage and monitor the regional rollout of industrial symbiosis programmes in 9 regions in England; North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, West Midlands, East Midlands, East of England, London, South West and South East. There is also a Scottish Industrial Symbiosis Programme (SISP) and Welsh programme (MAP-IS).

Since April 2005 the programme has helped to divert more than 860,000 tonnes of waste from landfill sites and created 154 new jobs. Nationally NISP has seen a reduction of almost one million tonnes of CO2 and an estimated £30,000,000 has been made in cost savings to Industry. More than 260 jobs have been safeguarded across the UK as a direct result of the programme and it has also seen £22,000,000 of private capital investment in reprocessing/

recycling with £17,000,000 made in additional sales.

For more information about NISP contact Maggie Morrissey on 01543 423541, email: maggie.morrissey@nisp.org.uk or visit the website, www.nisp.org.uk.