Leading construction firm Morgan Ashurst are using eco-friendly, innovative waste management experts HIPPOWASTE to help them achieve environmental targets and minimise on-site hazards.

The company is using HIPPOWASTE's flexible alternative to a skip, bright yellow HIPPOBAGs in the construction of a £15 million, six storey office development on the old Johnson & Johnson site in Portsmouth. The bags allow the segregation of waste such as masonry, timber and plasterboard at source. This not only minimises employee downtime, with staff able to clear waste as they work, but also reduces the risk of accidents.

The company is using a variety of waste containers but found that one of the issues when working across several storeys was that skips cannot be placed at height, therefore the use of chutes becomes necessary. The resulting dust cloud which can be created when transferring waste using chutes not only poses a health risk to construction staff but is a safety risk, as many materials such as metals, wood and plastics are combustible. In finely divided forms, these materials can create a combustible dust explosion hazard. Using HIPPOBAG's that can be hoisted several storeys high in place of skips or easily manoeuvred using pallet trucks eliminates this risk, however small it may be.

Project Manager for Morgan Ashurst, Adrian Talbot, who, with his team is using literally hundreds of the bags to strip out the building said; "Swapping skips for this environmentally-friendly bag alternative has worked really well for this type of project. They help us to vastly improve standards while staff are finding it easier to carry out their jobs more efficiently and in much greater safety."

The overall project is predicted a "very good" rating from BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method), the world's longest standing and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings, thanks to the efforts of companies such as Morgan Ashurst and HIPPOWASTE. Morgan Ashurst has already rolled the use of HIPPOBAGs out to other projects across the country in their continued drive to improve efficiency and boost environmental performance.

Once filled HIPPOWASTE collect, transport and dispose of the bags and their contents in an ethical manner, recycling as much material as possible.

Ben Clark, head of sales at HIPPOWASTE commented: "HIPPOBAG's functionality is certainly proving very popular in the construction world and we are delighted that our partnership with Morgan Ashurst has been so successful. It is great to hear that HIPPOBAGs are helping to improve the firm's productivity, but also of their benefits in minimising the health and safety implications associated with
skips."

Email: lucy.andrews@remarkablegroup.co.uk