Marshall-Tufflex has partnered with NESCOT College in Surrey, to supply PVC-U conduit products to help with the electrical students’ learning and installation of conduit systems. Once finished with, the waste product is collected from the college and recycled into pellets, meaning it can be used in the manufacture of new products. The partnership has been a successful circular economy trial between the college and the environmentally conscious manufacturer.
NESCOT College offers a range of part-time and full-time courses in the electrical sector including City & Guilds 7202 Electrical Installation Level 1, City & Guilds 2365 Electrical Craft Level 2 and City & Guilds 5357 Electrotechnical Qualification Level 3. The college currently has 150 students on its apprenticeship programme studying across all the electrical courses.
Marshall-Tufflex has been supporting the college since 2023 with approximately 300 metres of 20mm conduit annually, as well as corresponding accessories such as back boxes, saddles, couplers, tees, angles and terminal boxes.
Kathryn Stephen, Vice Principal: Curriculum at NESCOT College commented: “Our aim is to ensure students have a range of high-quality products to learn the practical skills of electrical installation. Thanks to Marshall-Tufflex, our electrical students have access to their high quality conduit products to work and learn with putting them in a great position for when they start on a real site.”
Crucially, the partnership between the college and manufacturer has also been part of a circular economy trial – an approach that aims to reduce waste and extend the life cycle of products by recycling materials. The students take an active role in this as part of their practical sessions, ensuring that only waste conduit is placed in the bin for recycling and that any boxes and other accessories are separated and binned once all metal work is removed. It is the students’ responsibility to ensure that waste product is placed into the appropriate bins. The waste conduit is then collected from NESCOT College and sent to Marshall-Tufflex’s processing partner, where it is put through a compounder to filter the product and turn it into PVC-U pellets. These are delivered back to the manufacturing plant for use in making a wide range of new trunking and conduit products. New product is then delivered to the college where the process starts over again.
Barry Roberts, National Specification Manager at Marshall-Tufflex commented: “Our partnership with NESCOT College is a great example of a successful circular economy exercise and demonstrates our commitment to sustainability and supporting the next generation entering into the electrical industry.”
Kathryn Stephen at NESCOT College concluded: “We are really pleased with the trial. The process has been so easy; our students not only work with high-quality products, but they also learn about the recycling process and its importance to the industry as well.”
For more information on Marshall-Tufflex, please visit www.marshall-tufflex.com.
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