A PROJECT which turns waste wood into fuel for council buildings is in the running for a national environmental award.

Warm from Wood, pioneered by Durham County Council, has been shortlisted in the environment initiative category of the Buildings Services Awards 2001.

Winners will be named at a ceremony hosted by TV personality Clive Anderson, at London's Grosvenor House Hotel at the end of the month.

Warmth from Wood turns waste wood into pellets for use in boilers as a coal substitute.

The initiative, funded by a grant of £78,500 from County Durham Environment Trust, is expected to save 10,000 tonnes of waste wood from being dumped in landfill sites and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from council buildings by eight per cent.

County council environment and technical services director, Chris Tunstall, said: "When the county's last deep coal mines closed, the county council was using about 5,000 tonnes of solid fuel a year in boiler plant in schools.

"Our policy is to phase out coal, and wood fuel is a readily available alternative."

Durham County Waste Management Company, which is wholly owned by the county council, has installed wood processing plant at its main landfill site, at Coxhoe, where large quantities of wood waste are now processed for use in chipboard manufacture.

A pelleting plant produces wood pellets from strictly-sorted and analysed raw material, to ensure that only clean waste wood is used to make the fuel pellets.