FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Chapter 3 A New Start

The acquisition of Caerleon Concrete, which then became Conway’s Concrete Products Ltd., not only solved my immediate need for a reliable supply of concrete, it also taught me about the margins that a manufacturer could make.

– it opened my eyes to the possibilities of recycling. This is how it happened. I was down at CCP talking with Tony Neath and Colin Challenger, the guys who had stayed on from Caerleon Concrete to manage the business for me. It was a big site, more than ten acres of fairly level land. One part was where the concrete products were stored, and the other part was more or less a dumping ground. And every so often, as we talked, I’d see a forklift going out of the door, and I got to wondering where they were going. So, I followed them out, and they were tipping waste into this enormous hole. But they had put so much in that the hole was full, and the waste was rising up into the air. I asked Tony what they had got in there, and he said: ‘It’s about twenty-five years’ of tipping waste. It’s aggregate really – old concrete blocks made from cement and 6mm or 10mm stone.’ And he and I worked out that there had to be about 150,000 tonnes of it down the hole. So, I asked him why he didn’t put it back into the product, and make use of it. But he said he couldn’t: he was governed by various British Standards that wouldn’t let him. So I said: ‘Surely

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