Firm's got concrete plans

The three-ton Bavtrak can turn concrete and brick rubble into small lumps of aggregate in minutes. The machine builds on the success of a smaller sister that can be used in confined areas like gardens.

The Bavtrack 025 is made at the factory on the Towers Business Park for use on larger developments to enable construction firms to avoid the financial costs of moving waste off the site.

Digbits director Marcus Clay said the development of the Bavtrak machines had been sparked by the increasing weight of legislation and costs involved in transporting waste from building sites.

"DEFRA – the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – is already consulting on new plans to introduce detailed site waste management plans, a legal requirement for all development projects in England worth over £250,000," he said. "In effect, that's nearly all of them.

"It means builders and developers will have to draw up assessments of how much waste will be produced on the site and how it will be reused, recycled or disposed of.

"This all adds to the cost of a development. Our machines solve that problem by turning waste bricks and concrete footings into aggregate for use on the site.

"Our first machine was small enough for use on single house extension projects but the bigger one weighs in at around three tons and could handle a project where, say, a five-bedroomed old house is being knocked down and the site used to build six or seven new houses.

"We have been putting the prototype through its paces ready to launch it at the Interbuild construction trade exhibition at the NEC in October."

The firm is also celebrating a deal to supply one of the Midland's biggest construction equipment suppliers, Gunn JCB, which operates across the region including one in Halfords Lane, Smethwick.

Digbits was originally established by Marcus' father John in 1991.