Whilst participating in the Institute of Clerk of Works conference in Glasgow, Scotland on April 25th to 27th I attended an interesting seminar regarding construction waste management: exploring ways of reducing waste from the design stage all the way to the to the end of life concluding with the effects that this has on buildings and Site Waste Management Plans.
Some interesting and disturbing figures emphasize the importance of waste management in construction: one third of waste going into landfill in the United Kingdom comes from demolition and construction. From further reading I have learnt that on average 8,000 lbs of landfill is produced by constructing a 2,000 sq.ft home. A report by VTT (Government research organization) in Finland has concluded that 10% of material deliveries to site go to waste. These figures are mind-boggling.
In todays world green thinking, carbon footprint and reducing amount of waste are issues which are at the forefront and of utmost importance to the future wellbeing of our environment. What is the construction industry doing about reducing the amount of waste produced on building sites? What can be done to reduce the amount of waste produced? What steps are being taken and what further steps are to be taken?
The waste produced by the construction industry is not just a burden on the environment and the ecological system, but it is also a huge cost to the industry itself. For example:
-Transport cost of “excess” material to site
-Cleaning and collection of “excess” material and waste
-Transport of waste from the building site
-Waste disposal costs
What are some of the things that can be done immediately to reduce the amount of waste and cost of construction waste disposal? How about:
-better project planning: planning of material requirements (exact quantities), planning of material deliveries to site and planning of material usage
-organized waste disposal
-increasing the level of recycling of construction waste
Solving the problems of waste disposal touches many vendors involved in the construction project: the owner, designers, contractors, etc. It starts from making it a concern already at initial stages of the project planning and continuing it through the design phase. Contractors and sub-contractors can play their part by better project planning which will also reduce their material and waste disposal costs bringing them a direct financial benefit.
Filed under: Construction Design, Construction Process Improvement, Construction Project Management, Construction Site Management | Tagged: construction performance improvement, construction resource efficiency, Construction Site Management, construction waste management, construction waste reduction, green building materials, sustainable building
Janne Saarikko
Teppo Grén
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhilst participating in the Institute of Clerk of Works conference in Glasgow, Scotland on April 25th to 27th I attended an interesting seminar regarding construction waste management: exploring ways of reducing waste from the design … [...]
One thing that strikes me in this wonderful world of sustainability and waste reduction is the fact that one of the biggest issues that we are having to deal with is not the fact that people and companies aren’t recycling but; the companies that take the waste can’t cope.
Timber the one commodity if you like that all of us would have thought would be the least of our worries is being sent to landfill because the current system cannot cope with the quantity thrown at it.
In construction there is a vast amount of timber being used and needing to be recycled. Take timber road profiles, mile after mile of them along our new roads delineating line and level, after two uses the timber splits and is no use and so is thrown in a skip. The Cross-Bone I discovered, which has been around for a while is made from recycled plastic and is a 100% reusable profiling system – but know one is using them -are they mad it saves money in all directions -materials, disposal, labour etc.
When will the site management open their eyes to what is available to them and stop being so stuck in their ways – they can’t afford to as the world and environment around them is changing – for the better!!