Construction & Demolition

Waste Minimisation can be applied to the whole construction project chain:

  • Clients – lay down environmental criteria and determine conditions through ‘partnering’ contracts
  • Designers/ Specifiers – can reduce resources used and can influence use and specification of reclaimed materials and deconstruction
  • Suppliers - can be encouraged to reduce excessive packaging
  • Constructors - can minimise the volume arising on site, use reclaimed materials and reduce wastage from poor handling

Waste Minimisation Tips for the Construction Sector

  • Contractual arrangements – use partnering
  • Efficient use of ordering materials
  • Reuse of materials or use of recycled materials
  • Appropriate materials and dimensions, prefabrication offsite
  • Materials and handling storage – good housekeeping
  • Efficient waste management – good onsite segregation
  • Efficient waste management – waste auditing and monitoring

Good Waste Minimisation Resources:

SEPA/CIRIA

The Small Environmental Guide for Construction Workers

SEPA and CIRIA have just produced a new version of a guide for professional contractors and tradesmen, working on all types of construction sites in Scotland. The disposal of waste from construction sites has become an expensive business. Gone are the days when everything was piled into a skip and taken off to be disposed of in a landfill site. This pocket-sized guide illustrates how working in an environmentally friendly way can help improve business performance and save money. Individual chapters outline handy tips for getting rid of waste, good practice for preventing pollution as well as information on the relevant legislation. Also highlighted throughout are examples of good environmental practice.

CIRIA (Construction Industry Research and Information Association)

CIRIA focuses on providing best practice guidance to professionals that is authoritative, convenient to use and relevant. Areas covered include construction practice, building design and materials, management and productivity. CIRIA produce a number of publications, including waste minimisation and recycling in cons

Contact
CIRIA
6 Storey's Gate
London SW1P 3AU
Tel: 020 7222 8891
www.ciria.org.uk external link

CIRIA Publications

  • Demonstrating waste minimisation benefits in construction (C536)
  • Waste minimisation and recycling in construction - a review (SP122)
  • Waste minimisation and recycling in construction - boardroom handbook (SP135)
  • Waste minimisation and recycling in construction - design manual (SP134)
  • Waste minimisation in construction - site guide (SP133)
  • Waste minimisation in construction - training pack (C555)
  • Tools for measuring and forecasting waste generated on site. Scoping study (PR83)


Welsh School of Architecture
Construction Waste Minimisation in Housing – Case Study
www.cf.ac.uk/archi/research/cost8/case/waste/constructionwaste.html external link

Construction Waste Minimisation Good Practice Guide
Download this report here pdf link (704k pdf)

Australian Construction Sites
WRAPP – New South Wales State Government Agency, Australia
Covers how to carry out a waste audit and simple things companies can do to reduce waste
www.wrapp.nsw.gov.au/construct/interactivc.shtml external link


EcoRecycle - Victoria State Government Agency, Australia
The Eco Recycle website includes practical tools developed specifically for the construction and demolition industries, which will help business to get started on reducing waste. This includes a guidelines for preparing a waste reduction strategy for construction, a model construction waste minimisation plan, a model demolition waste minimisation plan and model contract clauses.
www.ecorecycle.vic.gov.au/www/default.asp?casid=2562 external link

Waste Minimisation Campaigns
The Environment Agency and Constructing Excellence are working in partnership to deliver ‘SiteWise’ - a waste management campaign targeting the construction industry. A series of practical workshops around the region will be run, bringing in people who can talk about what they have done to reduce waste on their construction sites and highlighting the benefits this has brought their business.

Sustainable Construction Forum
The Sustainable Construction Forum aims to promote the implementation of sustainable initiatives, identify what is best practice in the use of sustainable materials, reduce waste and increase recycling and contribute to energy efficiency and improvement of the Environment. The Forum now has approximately 90 members representing 50 different organisations. It meets three times per year at various locations throughout Scotland.

Contact:
John Porter
Dundee City Council
Tel: 01382 433640
Fax: 01382 433114
Email: john.porter@dundeecity.gov.uk
Web: www.sscforum.org.uk/ external link

Sustainability Checklist
A sustainability checklist developed by Dundee City Council’s Architectural Services Division. This checklist encourages checks to be carried out at all relevant stages of a new build design process.

Construction Excellence
Constructing Excellence aims to achieve a step change in construction productivity by tackling the market failures in the sector and selling the business case for continuous improvement. Through focused programmes in Innovation, Best Practice Knowledge, Productivity and Engagement, Constructing Excellence has developed a strategy to deliver the process, product and cultural changes that are needed to drive major productivity improvements in the sector.

A sustainability section on their website has a list of useful fact sheets relating to sustainability that can be downloaded
Web: www.constructingexcellence.org.uk external link


Building Research Establishment (BRE)

BRE is the UK's leading centre of expertise on buildings, construction, energy, environment, fire and risk. They provide research-based consultancy, testing and certification services to customers world-wide. BRE offer a software package called SMARTWaste. This is a comprehensive suite of construction site waste auditing and waste management tools, including BREMAP, a GIS-based system for locating resoucres and waste processors.

Contact:
Building Research Establishment
Tel: 01923 664461

Steve Garvin
BRE Scotland,
Kelvin Road,
East Kilbride,
Glasgow
G75 ORZ
Tel. 01355 576200
E-mail: garvins@bre.co.uk
Website: www.bre.co.uk