Gypsum industry news

New Zealand: Auckland's first comprehensive recycling facility for building industry waste, including wallboard, has been opened by the environment and building and housing minister Nick Smith, according to Live News.

"This new recycling facility is about greening the building industry, enabling 30,000t/yr of construction and demolition waste to be diverted from going to landfill. It will enable thousands of tonnes of wood, wallboard, steel, plastics and aggregates from the construction sector to be sorted and re-processed into a reusable form," said Smith.

The US$2.78m facility is part-funded by a government grant of US$1.39m from the Waste Minimisation Fund and has created 15 jobs in the local Onehunga community. The fund was established by the government from a US$6.6/t levy on waste going to landfill that was introduced on 1 July 2009. Over US$39.6m has been used to fund more than 100 projects in the past five years.

"The opening of this new facility is very timely with Auckland on the brink of its largest ever building boom. The house build rate has increased from 4000/yr to 8000/yr since 2011 and is expected to grow to over 12,000/yr. Each home constructed generates 4t of waste and it makes sense to recycle as much of this construction material as possible," said Smith.

Wood, plasterboard, steel, plastics, aggregates and cardboard are being targeted by CID Resource Recovery for recycling or reuse. Wood will be further processed into biofuel for industrial kilns, while old wallboard can be recycled for use as a soil conditioner. Scrap steel will be extracted by magnet and delivered to metal recyclers for processing and sale on the local or export markets. Various grades of plastic, card and paper will go to local recyclers for processing. Aggregates will be used locally for hardfill or drainage material on building or infrastructure projects.

"This sort of practical approach to recycling typifies the Government's Bluegreen approach to waste. We are partnering with business to find economically-viable ways to recycle waste and focusing on those areas where there are the biggest gains. This initiative is particularly significant as construction and demolition waste makes up half of New Zealand's total waste going to landfill," said Smith.

Turkey: Onat GYPS has officially opened its new 25,000m²/day capacity gypsum wallboard plant near its gypsum plaster plant in Ankara, Turkey. The machine and automation systems were developed by Grenzebach Maschinenbau GmbH engineers.

Russia: CJSC Knauf Gips Baskunchak, based in the Astrakhan region, plans to start developing the Kashara-Tugai gypsum deposit before the end of 2015, according to company director Sergei Michkov.

"We are commissioning the Kashara-Tugai deposit, located north of Lake Baskunchak. We have received the development license and the documentation has been agreed. The reserves are quite large: it will support production for 100 years," said Michkov in comments reported on by Interfax.

Astrakhan region has reported 67.5Mt of gypsum registered on its state records. Knauf Gips Baskunchak had a total of 111Mt of gypsum reserves recorded at the start of 2015. Knauf Gips Baskunchak, which joined the Knauf group in 1998, produces high-quality dry mixes from gypsum and supplies gypsum to Russian cement plants and other enterprises.

Kazakhstan: A new gypsum building mixtures plant will be launched in Zhambyl by the end of 2015, according to the Kazinform International News Agency. The project has been initiated under the state programme, 'Industrialisation Map of Kazakhstan.'

JSC Zhambylgips is modernising the existing plant for US$9.09m. Once complete, the plant will have 270,000t/yr dry compounds and gypsum products capacity and will employ 50 people. It is assumed that the plant will produce about 600t/day of gypsum. The products will be delivered to local and foreign markets, mainly in Russia and central Asia.

US: The Gypsum Association (GA) has announced the release of the 21st edition of the Fire Resistance Design Manual (FDRM) GA-600-2015.

Revised on a three-year basis, GA-600 has been referenced by the model building codes as a source of fire resistive designs for more than 40 years. The 2015 edition contains nearly 100 new systems that supplement existing assemblies for walls and partitions, floor-ceiling systems, area separation walls and others. Among these are 20 new head-of-wall and base-of-wall systems that expand the options for perimeter relief.

The FRDM is currently referenced by the International Building Code and The National Fire Codes, as well as many state and local jurisdictions in the US and Canada as a source document for fire-resistance and sound-control rated designs that incorporate gypsum board in a variety of building systems. A recently revised ICC-ES Evaluation Report (ESR 1338) incorporates a reference to the 2015 edition of the Fire Resistance Design Manual as an acceptable source of generic fire-resistance and sound-control systems. Over the years, the FRDM has broadened to address sound and other factors of concern for designers, builders, code officials and the public, featuring more than 700 systems.