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A leisure centre refurbishment and extension project carried out by Pozzoni
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The construction industry is responsible for one third of all waste generated in the UK: 120m tonnes. In 2009, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, (WRAP) launched the Halving Waste to Landfill (HW2L) campaign, encouraging companies to ‘play their part in halving the amount of construction, demolition and excavation waste going to landfill by 2012’. Nearly 700 organisations have signed up to the commitment, all agreeing to adopt and implement standards for good practice in reducing waste, recycling more, and increasing the use of recycled and recovered materials.
Many of the organisations who have joined HW2L are building contractors directly involved in site waste management. However, waste management options should be considered early in a project through a hierarchy of on and off-site options. In the first instance, waste should be designed out, before being considered for re-use or recycling. There may be an option to recover waste heat from products that need to be incinerated or, as a last resort, waste may have to be disposed of. The latter is expensive and harmful to the environment.
All schemes over £300,000 (construction cost) are required, by law, to use Site Waste Management Plans (SWMPs) and ever increasing landfill tax has spurred building contractors to generate less waste. In the 2010 update, waste has been given greater weighting in BREEAM, the industry recognised environmental assessment method. Early planning is essential, as is setting indicative targets. Project teams should work together to identify the types of waste (hazardous, non-hazardous or inert), quantities likely to be produced and when they will be produced, as this will affect the project programme. Thought must always be given to site works, skip locations, delivery and collection.
WRAP’s Net Waste Tool identifies timelines of waste generation, predicts volume of waste, cost associated with disposal and generates a disposal strategy. Savings in cost and weight can also be forecast. A post-construction project report and review enables further learning to be implemented in future projects.
Designing out waste
As designers, we recognise that we can contribute to waste reduction during the design stage. We strive to design out waste by carefully considering building form and dimension and working to standard material sizes. Opportunities to minimise waste diminish as projects progress, therefore the early decision to work to standard sizes is the best opportunity to minimise waste arising on site as well as saving time throughout the construction process, which in turn goes toward making the whole building process more efficient.
WRAP’s designing out waste workshops identify opportunities to reduce and reuse waste on a project specific basis. We have conducted these workshops with design team members and clients on current projects to generate ideas for re-using existing on-site materials and considering off-site prefabrication.
Workshops start with an introductory presentation to WRAP and the key principles underpinning the materials efficiency initiative which are:
• Reuse and recovery of materials and components
• Off-site construction/manufacture
• Materials optimisation
• Waste efficient procurement
• Deconstruction and flexibility
Ideas generated in the workshop can be classified according to the ease/difficulty of implementation on the project with the level of impact (low to high) that the idea will have on waste reduction at the project level.
Other resources available online include the WRAP’s Recycled Content Tool which enables forecasting, and maximising, of the amount of recycled material used in a current project. This can help to refine the specification on a project-by-project basis to include options with greater recycled content, cleaner production processes and higher Green Guide ratings. Under BREEAM, materials re-used in-situ are automatically awarded the highest A+ rating therefore it is recognised that material re-use is optimum.
The tools for environmental analysis are many and varied and the sustainability agenda has been criticised for this. Client requirements, planning conditions and project budgets often dictate which tools are implemented, with legislation and costs remaining the key drivers. While HW2L and BREEAM are voluntary at the moment, the difference is that BREEAM has been established over several years and is increasingly stipulated by local authorities to suit their own agendas. Eventually BREEAM will become compulsory across all sectors, in the same way that the Code for Sustainable Homes is for domestic schemes. As the government proceeds along its road to zero carbon, it can only be a matter of time before HW2L, in whatever form, follows suit.
To access WRAP’s online tools visit www.wrap.org.uk/nwtool and www.wrap.org.uk/recycledcontent
Vanessa Wall is environmental designer at Pozzoni, an architectural practice with offices in London and Manchester. Visit www.pozzoni.com for further details.
A version of this article orginally appeared in the July/August 2011 issue of Greenbuild magazine. For a free subscription click here .
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