As one of the main drivers of UK economy in the recent years, construction has perhaps inevitably also been one of the largest producers of waste. In fact, if you include the demolition and excavation industries, it is responsible for some 120 million tonnes each year, equivalent to a third of the UK’s total waste arisings.

The sector was initially slow to adopt a sustainable agenda. Unlike other parts of the economy, there has been no specific European legislation to force its hand, merely the landfill tax. However, things have changed notably over the last few years. June 2008 saw the publication of the ‘Strategy for Sustainable Construction’, a joint industry/government initiative that set out a course of action to eventually put the sector’s house in order. Following this, the industry (with the backing of WRAP) adopted the ambitious target of halving construction waste by 2012, a pledge that now has over 500 signatories, representing around 60 per cent of total new-build construction.

Coming into play just before this was the introduction in April 2008 of site waste management plans as a regulatory requirement for all building projects worth over £300,000. Many within the sector saw this as a turning point. “I think they brought the whole issue of waste into focus for a lot of companies that wouldn’t otherwise have thought about it”, says Mike Watson, Head of Construction at WRAP. “Since then we’ve been looking to get firms to go beyond that basic requirement and look at what is good practice in waste management. If you’ve got one you might as well use it to actually improve things.”

To encourage this, WRAP has developed a number of tools to help contractors and designers reduce construction waste. These include a searchable ‘Recycled Content’ database, which focuses on how to identify opportunities to use recycled materials; a Net Waste Tool, which helps forecast the types and quantities of waste contractors can expect on a project (see case study two); a suite of tools for Designing Out Waste, which scope out the options for eliminating waste in its early stages; and Site Waste Management Planning, a tool that shows how firms might comply with the new regulations and which, according to Watson, has had over 10,000 users. WRAP has also added a reporting portal for contractors who have signed up to the halving waste commitment.

Watson admits that with these in place WRAP is now increasingly looking further up the supply chain and focusing on how to design out waste. “If I was to pick out one area that still needs working on it would be getting designers to be more involved in site waste management plans, seeing what the implications of their designs regarding waste are and then taking action to reduce that waste rather than ignoring it.” WRAP has since advised a number of new-build projects on such strategies (see case study one).

But of course reducing building waste is just one part of the picture. For construction’s supply side, the most notable development to come out of the 2008 strategy was a succession of material action plans that have been drafted in consultation with industry stakeholders. One by one these have emerged over the last year, including separate initiatives for plasterboard, flooring, windows and joinery. The final plan, for packaging, is expected in early 2011.

Apart from laying out a course of joint action in each area, the material plans also highlight the fact that in terms of grappling with waste some parts of the construction jigsaw are farther along than others.

For example, the various parties that represent plasterboard appear to be doing well. Even before the publication of the 2008 strategy, manufacturers had come to a voluntary agreement to reduce plasterboard waste to landfill below 10,000 tonnes per annum and to increase reuse and recycling of plasterboard waste to 50 per cent of new construction waste arisings by 2010.

Running in tandem with this has been the establishment of a number of industry take-back schemes, like the one South West-based distributor E.J. Berry has put in place, where delivery of plasterboard comes with prepaid waste bags. Other voluntary agreements in this sector include the one between Taylor Wimpey and local plasterboard recycler Roy Hatfield in Yorkshire. After a successful trial that used Hatfield’s recycled plasterboard on one site, the scheme is being rolled out across all Taylor Wimpey sites in the region. According to Gilli Hobbs, Director of Resource Efficiency at BRE (Building Research Establishment), who helped draft the action plan, the plasterboard business is “well on its way to meeting the 50 per cent target”.

On the other hand, progress in the flooring sector is slow – 600,000 tonnes are disposed of each year with only two per cent currently being recycled and 92 per cent going to landfill. Carpeting, which accounts for 73 per cent of the flooring market, presents a particular problem. Most UK-sold carpets are mixed products consisting of nylon, wool, polypropylene and polyester, which makes extraction difficult. There are also problems with the lack of end markets.

“People in the past have taken a look at it and thought ‘Oh, it’s too difficult’, which is why nothing has happened”, says Pete Thomas, Secretary of the Flooring Sustainability Partnership, who wrote the Flooring Action Plan. “We are gradually developing end markets and looking at ways of showing people that this can be a valuable resource. It is a very slow process though.”

Thomas admits that the flooring diversion is unlikely to reach the 50 per cent mark by 2012 but sees the action plans as a whole as vital in galvanising the industry’s supply side. “They’re very important because if you do not get co-coordinated action across the board, including all the distributors and retailers, you will only get one or two that will basically wave the flag and say, ‘Yes,
we’re going to do it.’ And they will take small amounts – usually their own product – back."

He suggests that there is no other option. “I think producers are now realising, ‘Okay, it might be difficult but we’ve got to find a way of doing it because if not, somebody is going to put restrictions on what can be done.’ The last government gave the industry a scare by consulting on banning certain materials to landfill. The current government have said, ‘We’re not going to do that but we’re looking for producer responsibility.’ So, that is what we’re trying to do – taking responsibility for our own end-of-life products.”

Even if its constituent parts are running at different speeds, it appears that the construction industry as a whole is at least taking waste reduction seriously now. “Although it’s certainly challenging, I’m optimistic that we can reach the 50 per cent target”, says Watson (up-to-date statistics for the industry are expected from the Strategic Forum for Construction this January). “Unfortunately, there isn’t a silver bullet, because you’re dealing with a large number of different players in the industry.

“But even if we don’t there’s no question that the whole awareness in the industry of waste and the need to reduce and recover it and avoid taking it to landfill, is huge now compared with even just a few years ago.“

CASE STUDY 1:

Learning about waste reduction

An example of a project that from design to completion was guided by principles of waste reduction is the Bridge Learning Campus in the Hartcliffe area of Bristol, a part of the last government’s ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. It was an ambitious venture that included a primary, a secondary and a special school plus a learning support centre, and Bristol City Council set equally ambitious targets for waste recovery (43 square metres of construction waste per £100,000 of the project’s value) and recycled content (12 per cent).From the very beginning, architects specifically designed the windows, bracing and plasterboard to ensure all the elements fitted neatly together, leading to quicker work on site and fewer offcuts. The contractor, Skanska, also invited the local Scouts group to take any materials from the previous school building prior to demolition work, thus reducing disposal costs. Perhaps most significantly, the excavation arisings were used to level the site and create the school’s playing fields. Skanska estimates that this prevented some 62,500 tonnes of waste going to landfill, saving £156,000 in landfill tax.The project also made use of take-back schemes – tile offcuts were segregated, collected by the supplier and eventually manufactured into new ceiling tiles. Timber pallets were collected by local firm Woodwise and recycled into biomass wood pellets. There was even a system for the painters to wash down brushes and rollers in a filtration tank instead of standard sinks.In the end, Skanska fulfilled its targets with ease, using 21 per cent recycled content and getting construction waste down to a mere 8.3 square metres per £100,000. It estimates that, including disposal costs and landfill tax, by the time the campus opened its doors in 2009, the project had saved a not-inconsiderable £600,000.

CASE STUDY 2:

A healthy approach to construction

As a signatory of the halving waste commitment, Graham Construction takes the issue seriously. For the recent construction of a health and social care centre in Barrhead in East Renfrewshire, the contractor used WRAP’s Net Waste Tool, and with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde setting a target to recover a minimum of 70 per cent of construction materials, waste minimisation was clearly a priority for the £7 million project. Specific steps were taken in the early stages to reduce waste. Materials were ordered only after detailed measurements were taken, skips were kept strictly segregated and subcontractors were charged for any contamination of the skips. The importance of waste reduction was reiterated regularly on site – training workshops were held between the subcontractors and the project manager to increase their awareness of the waste minimisation targets. Even the on-site records were stored electronically, reducing paper and printer cartridge waste and energy consumption. Insulation was ordered ‘just in time’ and laid the same day, thus ensuring the only waste generated was from cutting around columns.All these small but important steps had a cumulative effect over the course of the year-long project. By the time the centre was completed in autumn 2010, the overall net saving to Graham Construction, including disposal costs and materials, was £77,800, just over one per cent of the total construction value. By taking a methodical approach to waste reduction some 436 tonnes of waste were diverted from landfill.