News

Up to now, 50 persons have answered the questionnaire for stakeholders. They represent all kinds of potential end users of the DIRECT-MAT project results: road owners, standardization experts, road designers, contractors, material producers, researchers, laboratory personnel, professional associations, equipment manufacturers and teachers.

We are happy to see the great interest in joining our expert group and providing data to the database and all interested will be contacted in due time. The answers are valuable in our database work and we are looking forward to even more answers.

A short notice, entitled “DIRECT-MAT – nu samles erfaringer med genanvendelse af vejmaterialer”, is published in the Danish journal “REN viden” under the theme Collection and transport. It is a public journal about waste and resources and you will find the notice on page 14 in No 3/2009 here.

On November 24-25^th the European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP) 2009 conference took place in Brussels (Belgium) and Steve Phillips FEHRL made an oral presentation of the DIRECT-MAT project. There is a link to the conference program here.

The congress “Kolloquium Forschung & Entwicklung für Zement und Beton“ was held on the 4^th of November in Vienna (Austria) and Mr Stefan Marchtrenker, VÖZfi, made an oral presentation of the DIRECT-MAT project. There is a link to the congress program here.

On the 15^th of October, the DIRECT-MAT project was presented on the ENVIROAD 2009 conference in Warsaw (Poland). This 2^nd int conf on Environmentally Friendly Roads was organised by MT Polska and Road & Bridge Research Institute and you can download information on the conference here and Mr Krzysztof Mirski’s presentation here. An introductory article is included in the proceedings and leaflets were distributed to participants.

An introductory article entitled “Gamla vägar blir som nya” is published in the Swedish journal “På Väg”, No 4/2009. It is the journal of the public road construction company SVEVIA and you will find the article here on pages 16–17.

All DIRECT-MAT partners are currently collecting and reviewing national literature regarding the dismantling and recycling or safe disposal of road materials. This will result in national reports which will be synthesised into common European reports in the end of this year. The literature reviewed comprises national guidelines and recommendations; published project reports and state of the art reports; articles in scientific and technical journals as well as handbooks and specifications describing national common practice.

The general frame for the DIRECT-MAT database is now ready and the call for the database software programming is sent out.

The questionnaire has now been translated to German and Swedish. All questionnaires can be found here at the DIRECT-MAT homepage. The purpose is to find out potential end users’ opinions and expectations on the future database.

The final seminar of the EC FP6 funded projects Arches and Spens was held on 27–29 August in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and FEHRL promoted the DIRECT-MAT project with poster and leaflets. There is a link to the seminar information here.