Taking the Pulse of Construction Waste Minimisation Practices and Challenges in the UK: A Contractor’s Perspective

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The UK construction industry is under an ever increasing pressure to adopt more sustainable construction practices; including waste minimisation. Construction and demolition activities produce around 109 million tonnes of waste, three times more waste than all UK households combined, half of which goes to landfill. Additionally, 13 million tonnes of unused building materials that have been over-ordered end up in skips. As a result, the UK government put in place a number of initiatives to encourage the construction industry to drive its own waste reduction programme and calls for zero waste to landfill by 2020. Research was thus undertaken to explore current waste reduction practices and challenges facing the UK construction industry. By means of a postal questionnaire sent to the 100 top UK contractors, the paper investigates: causes of construction wastes; existing onsite waste minimisation practices in the UK; and barriers and incentives to a comprehensive waste streamline programme. The results reveal that onsite waste causes are predominantly due to client changes; design process; procurement routes; site operations and material handling; and sub-contractors practices. Although contractors are pursuing a proactive approach to curb onsite waste; few efforts were made to segregate and re-use wasted materials. Finally contractors identified strategic, cultural, organisational and supply chain barriers that impede construction waste minimisation practices.

Stream: Environmental Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Qualified architect, joined Loughborough University, UK, in 2001 following a career in architectural design practice.
Manage research on sustainable design and construction, resource and energy efficiency, design management, TQM and project performance, and IT in construction.
Currently leading three major funded research projects: BeAware: Built Environment on Action through Waste Awareness and Resource Efficiency; Cutting Waste in Construction; and Sustainable Property Development.
Member of various research networks namely: Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability (BIONIS); Sustainable Design Network; and Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network