DURRA Building System wins National Green Award for ‘Waste Recycling’

DURRA Building Systems Factory Manager Kalinga Eheliyagoda receiving the award

DURRA Building System (Pvt.) Limited, a subsidiary of International Construction Consortium (ICC), won the Bronze Award in ‘Waste Recycling’ at the recently concluded National Green Awards Ceremony 2015 organised by the Central Environment Authority of Sri Lanka.  

Commenting on this remarkable achievement, DURRA Building Systems General Manager Gunasiri  Abeysinghe said, “DURRA Building Systems teamed up with Ortech Australia to manufacture DURRA multipurpose building panels in Sri Lanka. We set up a factory manufacturing DURRA multipurpose building panels in the Minneriya area, where paddy is grown extensively.  At present, we are purchasing paddy straw, which the cultivators used to burn despite the instructions from the Department of Agriculture to plough it in to the paddy field, at Rs. 5,000 per MT. We have given a value to paddy straw that used to be burnt and several new employment opportunities have been generated in the way of straw collectors. We are providing them with baling machines and even with all these facilities, we are only buying about 6% of the total paddy straw generated in the Minneriya area. One of the specialties of DURRA panels is that they are self-supporting up to a height of 2. 7 meters,” 

“We wanted to diversify into other areas. As the DURRA multipurpose building panels are highly resistant to fire, as proved by experimentation at an independent laboratory in Singapore, they make excellent fire-rated doors. In fire resistance tests, DURRA multipurpose building panels scored a fire-resistant period of more than two hours.  Mega scale projects such as the Havelock City Condominium Project and the Colombo Hospital Renovation Project are using DURRA Multipurpose building panels.  We have supplied a large number of fire-rated doors to several large scale projects,” Abeysinghe commented.

“Another use of DURRA multipurpose building panels is ‘kit houses. A kit house is a small building that can be shifted from place to place, very useful in highway projects and other development project involving extensive areas and difficult terrain such as jungles.  A kit house is in knock down form.  You can load a knocked-down kit house onto a lorry and take it to the desired location and set it up.  As the project moves further, the kit house can be disassembled and set up again at a different location,” Abeysinghe elaborated.

“The excellent acoustic properties of DURRA panels make them the ideal material to construct recording and sound proof studios.  The sound studios of Independent Television Network and the recently constructed sound proof studio of Bhathiya and Santhush were constructed with DURRA panels,” he said.

Commenting on this green initiative, ICC CEO Namal Peiris said, “Today, the global warming has become a real issue. By the year 2020, if this trend continues, the world temperature will go up by one degree Celsius. This has become a real problem and even religious leaders are addressing global warming, environmental sustainability and green issues. Being a construction company that has been in the construction industry in Sri Lanka for the past 30 odd years, we thought of trying to give back what we have taken in terms of sand, clay and other natural building material that is fast depleting. We searched for an environmentally friendly product that is utilising waste material and came up with DURRA panels.  In fact, we invested in establishing a factory to manufacture and the product also proved to be very popular. Being recognised this way by the National Green Building Initiative makes us very happy as this proves that we are on the right track.”