The industry has had mixed success in reducing waste to landfill
The UK Contractors Group is to make last-ditch efforts at persuading the government to rethink its scrapping of Site Waste Management Plan legislation.
Charlie Law, deputy chairman of the Strategic Forum Waste Subgroup and head of environmental management at BAM Construct UK, told CM: “The legislation is due to be scrapped as part of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, but we still think it’s worth them considering various suggestions we have on how excavation waste is classified. We think that where there’s a definite re-use of soils and stones, such as when they are used as topsoil on other sites including landfill sites that need topping-off, this should be counted as re-use, and not just classified as going to landfill.
“We also think government should look to place more responsibility on designers and architects to consider how to minimise landfill at the design stage. At the moment, the main focus is just on contractors.”
Whatever the outcome of the UKCG’s efforts on this front, Law says major contractors are committed to reducing waste to landfill, but adds that there is concern that smaller contractors may be tempted to take cheaper and easier options. The same point was made recently in CM by Jon de Souza, director of Constructing Excellence, who expressed strong disappointment at the government’s plans to scrap the Site Waste Management Plan legislation.
Law’s comments come as he latest construction industry waste figures (for 2008-10) show that the industry is making mixed progress with regard to reducing the amount of construction and demolition waste going to landfill. The figures show that since the baseline figure was established in 2008, construction and demolition waste to landfill has reduced by 1.87 million tonnes, from 6.15 million tonnes to 4.28 million tonnes. The industry is therefore on target to meet the halving waste to landfill target for these two particular waste streams.
Sudden spike in excavation waste
From 2008 to 2010, using figures normalised to the level of construction output, the amount of waste to landfill has fallen from 65 tonnes per £1m of construction output to 47 tonnes.
However, the news was disappointing in regard to excavation waste, primarily soil and stones, which has seen a sharp increase by 2.4 million tonnes in the amounts going to landfill. The cause of this sudden spike is as yet unknown but a number of possible theories are being promulgated and will receive further investigation.
These include changes in exemptions available under the new environmental permitting regulations that now have much lower tonnage thresholds for the reuse of soils and stones on construction sites. In 2010 there were a number of major projects producing large volumes of excavated material, these could have had a significant impact on the data. Another suggestion is that the decline in domestic waste going to landfill has accelerated the closure of a number of less profitable landfill sites and inert material, such as soils and stones, is required to fill the voids and restore these sites.
The industry, working collaboratively with Defra, the Environment Agency and WRAP through the Strategic Forum for Construction’s Waste Subgroup, will be exploring in more depth the reasons for the soil and stones spike. The group, now a part of the government’s Green Construction Board activities, has been monitoring construction, demolition and excavation waste since 2008, as well as advising on what actions are needed across the industry to be more efficient in the use of materials and to reduce waste to landfill.
Chairman of the Waste Subgroup, Peter Johnson, said: “We are very pleased with the progress being made across the industry in reducing construction and demolition waste to landfill although we are naturally disappointed that the large increase in soils and stones is hindering the delivery of our overarching target of reducing construction, demolition and excavation waste to landfill by 50% by 2012 based on a 2008 baseline.”
Details of the statistics can be found in the latest figures published at: www.strategicforum.org.uk/waste.shtml
