Leading masonry products manufacturer, Lignacite, has launched the world’s first carbon negative building block. Named ‘The Carbon Buster’, the new building block from Lignacite is a British innovation, which has been developed by the company in partnership with Carbon8 Aggregates, using their award winning Accelerated Carbonation Technology.

The Carbon Buster incorporates more than 50% recycled aggregates and combines this with Carbon8’s carbonated aggregates derived from by-products from waste to energy plants. The result is a high performing masonry product, and the first ever building block, which has captured more carbon dioxide than is emitted during its manufacture; 14kg CO₂ per tonne to be exact.

Carbon8’s Technical Director, Dr Paula Carey, explains: “On the back of research carried out at The University of Greenwich’s School of Science, Carbon8 identified an end use for thermal residues from waste to energy plants. By mixing the residue…

This week we have a guest blog from Collections Development Assistant Wayne Holland who shines a light on Norwich manufacturers Laurence and Scott and a HUGE motor that we recently moved into the Norfolk Collections Centre

By Wayne Holland

100 years ago going to work in Norwich for the vast majority of people meant making something. Perhaps you worked in Colman’s mustard factory or brewed beer in one of the big breweries, perhaps you made shoes, wove silk or worked in the printing or engineering industries. Now in the 21st century the percentage of Norwich workers employed in manufacturing is just 8%.

Images of Norwich in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century contain a feature of the landscape long since extinguished from the skyline….. chimneys, evidence of the cities industrial past.

Jarrolds printing factory in 1951, notice how many chimneys there are in the background.

There are also some other important points to consider regarding farm cost savings and higher production yields with mycorrhizae. The University of Wisconsin made a study of the effects of Mycorrhizal Applications Inc’s product called MycoApply on potato yields, profit and another extremely interesting thing about the application of phosphorus in the field. It was found that where conventional grown potatoes needed 120 lbs of phosphorus added per acre, under the mycorhizal applications to the potato fields, only 30 lbs was needed. Hence less phosphorus and more efficient mycorrhizal nutrient competition and uptake means less fertilizers. There was also an added bonus of more yield of potatoes per acre and profit by the usage of mycorrhizae into the soils. So drought tolerance, superior nutrient uptake which negated tons of fertilizers on industrial site, 200% increase in water hydration which made plants drought resistant and the added plus of less weeds…

We left the Honor Oak Estate last week, perhaps as oppressed by the inequality and constraints that have marked the lives of our poorer citizens as by Nazi bombs.  1945 brought the defeat of Hitler; the struggle to achieve decent conditions for all our people would be longer-fought.  In this and for the new generation of planners, the Estate would feature as a warning of what to avoid.  The ‘neighbourhood units’ and ‘mixed developments’ favoured – in principle rather better than in practice – in the post-war years were a conscious reaction to the design failings of interwar council estates, of which Honor Oak was taken to be a prime example. (1)

Barville Close

The General Election of 1945 saw a Labour landslide and a shift, it seems, in the politics and identity of the Estate too: ‘After the war we all went voting for Labour’, largely, as remembered, through the…

As if a visit to Oxford, “city of dreaming spires”, isn’t reward enough, a day spent at the University of Oxford’s Botanic Garden (OBGHA) is an absolute delight.

Oxford, “city of dreaming spires”.

Botanic gardens have an important role to play in plant conservation, with research, development, seed banks and education, contributing to preserving plant diversity. About 100,000 plants, more than a third of the world’s plant species, are facing extinction in the wild and Botanic Gardens worldwide have an important role to play in their preservation.

The role of Botanic Gardens in Plant Conservation.

So it is an added bonus when they are aesthetically pleasing as well.

Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ at the Botanic Garden, Oxford.

At Oxford, the Gardens are divided into the Lower Garden and the Walled Garden as well as seven glasshouses packed with treasures – 1200 different species from around the globe.

Exploring the glasshouses, Oxford

Inside…

Over the last nine months I have done many things that makes the answer to the question ‘how was work today?’ sound very interesting. I have fork-lifted a mammoth tusk. I have frozen an Anglo Saxon manikin. I have cleaned a Bishop’s Throne and written a trail about dragons.

The weird and wonderful has become the everyday so perhaps I should spell out what I do here over in the Norfolk Collections Centre and why I think it is important. My job title is Collections Management trainee, and although you may think that it’s not hard to manage a load of inanimate objects, it is harder than it sounds.

The weird and wonderful normally appears at the beginning of the week when reaching up and lifting down some of the mystery pallets off the racking. In fact that is the most exciting time, when we are about to look at…