Integra is a water meter installation and maintenance contractor, and is part of Severn Trent Metering Services. Its head office is in Derby, in the UK. Best environmental practice has been built into both its activities and its products. There are numerous examples of how the company manages resources and minimises waste.

Integra installs about 14,000 boundary boxes (which hold water meters) a year. To backfill the excavations for those boxes, it mixes the excavated soil with Permasoil (a soil additive which was originally developed by the US military for forming airfields in Vietnam). This reduces the amount of excavated material taken to landfill, and means that stone (a natural resource) does not have to be imported to the site to backfill the hole.

The company uses Smart-Fix fittings, which use about 16% less brass than conventional fittings. Since Integra uses some 35,000 fittings a year, this equates to a total saving of some 3045 kg of brass annually.

Integra recycles all metal meters with a specialist water meter recycling company melting them down for re-use. It also recycles electronic water meters. The key components, battery, pcb and plastic casing are separated at the meter returns store in Derby. The plastic is then sent for re-grind.

During 2006 Integra invested in cardboard balers at all its sites. This proved cost-effective, since the actual number of cardboard waste skips required has been halved.

Through 2007 Integra also intends to evaluate the use of re-usable trays for meter deliveries in order to further reduce packaging.

The discontinuance of Lightwood Reservoir near Buxton shows how Severn Trent Water tries to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill. It also shows how a capital scheme can make a positive contribution to biodiversity in a sensitive landscape - in this case, the upland Peak District landscape.

The project involved draining existing reservoirs, dealing with the brick and concrete and re-profiling the landscape. Severn Trent Water had to break out the old concrete and brick liners, demolish the water tower and valve chambers, and cut a V-notch in the lower dam wall. It then used the arisings from the dams to re-profile the sides of the reservoir to form a natural valley shape, with a stream at the base feeding four pools, created to encourage wildlife and aquatic vegetation. All the materials arising from the earthworks, including the concrete and brick, were buried on site; no material was taken to landfill.

The objective of the landscape design was to show how an engineered solution to the problem of reservoir discontinuance can be sensitively treated to result in a new landscape. Severn Trent Water's landscape architects, supported by a local ecologist, ensured that the re-profiled banks were as close to the natural habitat of the area as possible.