Nottinghamshire roofing company E-B-C-UK Ltd is working with the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Mid-Wales, to solve one of the biggest problems in waste disposal - discarded tyres.

Every year, we end up with about 450,000 tonnes of used tyres in the UK - and over a third of them are simply sent to landfill sites. However, since reclaimed rubber has so many uses, a new EU regulation to reduce the amount of waste we bury will ban tyres from landfill by 2006.

E-B-C-UK has given CAT some of their 'Ardesia' tiles, produced using reclaimed rubber from waste tyres. They have been grained to resemble slate, so fit in very well at CAT's visitor centre, which is built on the site of an old Welsh slate quarry.

The donated tiles are being used to roof a new display at the centre, which looks at many alternative, environmentally friendly ways of keeping the rain off. They include roofs made from grass and sedum turf, reclaimed timber, recyclable stainless steel, and two different kinds of solar panels à one to heat water and one to generate electricity.