Construction and Demolition Waste

More than 50% of waste sent to landfill in this area is generated from construction and demolition whereas only 25% is municipal waste including household waste.  Reducing construction and demolition waste could significantly impact upon the amount of land required for landfill.

East Sussex County Council has adopted a Supplementary Planning Document on Construction and Demolition Waste and all local authorities in East Sussex have agreed to implement the measures set out in the document.

The main points are:

• All applications for developments of over 5 houses of flats or 500m2 built development area will need to be accompanied by a ‘Site Waste Management Plan’ (SWMP)
• All applications for smaller developments will require a ‘Waste Minimisation Statement’

The Waste Management Plan should identify all the types of waste and the amounts that will be generated from a development and clearly show they will be disposed of.  The plan should aim to minimise the amount of waste being simply disposed of, and maximise:

• The reduction of waste (for example by taking measures to avoid over ordering)
• Re-use and reprocessing on site (for example reusing soil moved from one part of the site elsewhere on the site or the reuse of materials taken from a building demolished on site)
• Re-use and reprocessing off site (for example selling materials to a salvage yard)
• Recycling (for example sending packaging from deliveries and paper from the site office for recycling)
• Recovery (for example sending timber off cuts to be reprocessed into fuel)

A Waste Minimisation Statement should cover the same issues, but in less detail.

A key point is to sort waste materials before they leave site, one stray tub of adhesive or length of treated timber in a skip could mean that it all has to be dealt with as hazardous waste rather than being recycled.