21 May 2010
London is to pioneer an innovative model designed to tackle the tens of millions of tonnes of construction waste generated in the UK each year, after the London Waste and Recycling Board yesterday awarded £500,000 to a groundbreaking recycling project.
The funding will back a proposal from charity BioRegional and the existing Croydon Appliance Reuse Centre (ARC) to develop the UK's first centre for the reuse of building materials.
The centre will collect unwanted building material from housing developments and DIY stores and sort the discarded material for resale to the public and members of the building trade.
The London Waste and Recycling Board said the funding would create four new jobs and support a training programme for 40 young trainees while also helping to divert 3,500 tonnes of building waste from landfill.
It is also expected to save an estimated 1,700 tonnes of waste over the first five years of the project, by diverting waste from landfill and limiting the need for new materials.
Construction material is one of the most under-reported waste streams in the UK and according to London Waste and Recycling Board chairman James Cleverly, 9.7 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste were produced last year in London alone. "Around half of this was recycled but there is still much more we need to do to tackle the rest which largely ends up dumped in landfill sites, " he added.
He praised the reuse centre as an innovative response to the problem of construction waste that would also help cut emissions and bring jobs to the capital.
Jonathan Essex, reclaimed materials manager at BioRegional, said that overall 25 million tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation waste are sent to landfill each year. He added that the charity hoped to use the centre as a template for a network of three centres across London.
LATEST STORIES ABOUT
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
LATEST JOBS
TODAY'S TOP STORIES
HIGHLIGHT
The best green companies in the UK should be preparing their entries for annual BusinessGreen Leaders Awards
INSIGHT
INSIGHT
The science and practical application of an improved method for the specification of power and cooling infrastructure for data centres
A look at alternative approaches to managing energy for cost and/or sustainability reasons in data centres
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comment
builders waste recycling
Although our local council (Lanbeth) has strict rules for maximising recycling of our domestic waste, there appear to be no parallel rules whatsoever for the stuff builders routinely chuck into their skips. The amount our current builders have disposed of since they started work nearly two months ago, far exceeds in volume what we have put into our own domestic and recycling bins over the same period. I realize that much building waste might not be readily recycled, and to be fair to our own builders, they have recycled quite a bit of wood and most of the metal, but that's of their own choosing. So why do there appear to be no rules for separating out builders' waste into recycling categories? And how long is this situation going to continue, apparently without wider attention or relevant policies even under discussion?
Posted by Brian Rosen, 28 Oct 2011