Examination of Witnesses (Questions 740-759)
Ms Gilli Hobbs and Mr Andrew Swain
6 MAY 2008
Q740 Chairman: Thank you. Where do the
primary waste streams in the construction industry arise from?
What would you identify as the streams? Equally important, once
we have established what you would regard as these primary waste
streams, how do you see them in terms of value. Obviously you
could waste a lot of energy trying to retrieve waste which is,
frankly, not worth it in terms of effort or cost or even environmental
benefit. How do you identify these major streams?
Ms Hobbs: I tend to split them into demolition
waste, refurbishment waste, construction waste and then the civil
side of things as well. They are all very different waste streams
and the composition of the waste within them is quite different
as well. The studies that have been carried out to date have focused
pretty much on the aggregates aspect of the waste stream, so we
have quite good statistics in terms of the amount of waste that
is generated that can essentially be converted into aggregates
but we have less information on the more active waste. The BRE
has been undertaking benchmarking studies with support from Defra.
From that, I can give you an idea of the composition for housing
waste: for example, 17%, the biggest single component of the waste
stream, is packaging waste by volume. Then you have other quite
significant wastes: concrete, bricks, plastics and timber. That
is the general composition. It is pretty much the case that those
that can be processed quite easily tend to be the ones that are
recycled the highest.
Q741 Chairman: We have heard varying
claims about the amount of material on site that is wasted and
it ranges from 13% to 30%. Do you have information centrally or
in terms of your experience, Mr Swain, to suggest whether or not
these figures are realistic? It is quite a substantial divergence.
What is your take on this?
Mr Swain: I think it is. I think there is a
variety in the percentage of waste because of the types of projects
that are carried out and various sizes of project and types of
project that are carried out. It is important to make a differentiation
between a civil engineering project and a construction project.
Within civil engineering, most of the high value waste tends to
be bulk aggregates, earthworks material, whereas in construction,
house building and office building, it tends to be packaging type
waste. It is important to make a distinction there between the
two sorts of projects that we are discussing. The figures you
have quoted are probably quite accurate. I do not think as an
industry we are particularly good at recording the amount of waste
that is generated and what we regard as waste in the first place.
Q742 Chairman: Is that even taking into
account the EU Packaging Directive which imposes quite a lot of
responsibilities of a costly character on businesses?
Mr Swain: It does. We are lacking take-back
schemes in the industry, for construction projects to take back
their waste packing to their supplier and manufacturers. There
is a lot of material at the end of the job that goes to waste
because there is no local market for it, if you like, to recycle
it or to reuse it.
Q743 Chairman: I realise that Mr Brock
from Balfour Beatty would probably have been able to help us on
this issue but maybe you can say from your own experience and
results. Are large construction companies aware of the financial
costs of waste? If they are—and one assumes they would be—in
your experience, how can they communicate that down the chain
to the second and third tier contractors for whom they have responsibility?
Ms Hobbs: We have been working with quite a
few companies to set benchmarks for the overall amount of waste
they are looking to produce compared to the floor area. That seems
to be quite a powerful way of getting everybody to focus on waste
reduction. It is very difficult to get people to focus on waste
reduction because it is not particularly tangible. You can look
at how much waste has been recycled. You can look at those costs;
they are quite tangible. Waste reduction is not tangible because
you are trying to quantify something that no longer is there.
Having this measurement is very important, in order to measure
waste reduction. You can then say how much money you are saving.
The critical thing everybody is trying to work out is: What is
the business case? If I invest this much in terms of waste reduction
activities, am I going to get the money back myself in terms of
reduced waste costs? It is not as simple as that. Sometimes, for
example, the site might be undertaking waste reduction activities
but somebody else could be benefiting financially. The things
I have seen from the industry in terms of communication tend to
be when people come onto the site, they have their Site Waste
Management Plan that basically tells everybody on the site what
activities should be carried out in terms of waste reduction and
recycling, and that is then communicated to people through the
site induction and also through tool-box talks throughout the
project. That ongoing communication might be posters, telling
people how they are doing, et cetera.
Q744 Chairman: It is really exhortation
rather than carrot and stick.
Ms Hobbs: Yes.
Q745 Chairman: You are really telling
us that they are going through the motions but they are not doing
very much.
Ms Hobbs: I would not say they are not doing
very much.
Q746 Chairman: Would they put their hands
up and say, "We've told them that they shouldn't do this
but we've not done anything about it other than that"?
Ms Hobbs: I think everybody is going through
a learning process at the moment. The Site Waste Management Plans
will mean that everything is at least contained within one place.
Whereas it has been sort of scattered about, there have been ad
hoc activities, the Site Waste Management Plan will at least centralise
some of those activities. A lot of companies are doing a lot in
order to maximise their resource use on sites. With waste reduction
it is more difficult. You really need to go back up the supply
chain to reduce waste and there really is not enough information
to help people prioritise their actions on waste reduction. In
terms of diverting waste from landfill, there is a lot of work
going on throughout the construction industry. They are diverting
a lot of waste from landfill. In demolition alone we are looking
at 90% plus diversion rates from landfill typically. They are
doing a lot, it is just that waste reduction is quite a difficult
one to tap into.
Mr Swain: I would have to concur with what Gilli
has said: you have to go back up the supply chain and look at
the ultimate client and the designers of the whole construction
process, because there is a lot of waste that can be minimised
through good design and through the influence of the client.
Q747 Chairman: You say you are working
with member bodies or companies to establish best practice. Where
would you go to see examples of best practice? Would it be the
UK or would it be companies abroad? From what you were telling
me (a) there seems to be a somewhat latter day conversation and
(b) it has been suggested that there are higher levels of productivity
and efficiency outwith the UK in the construction industry. Are
you looking within the UK or are you looking outwith to try to
find examples of best practice? If nobody here is really all that
good, what is the point of trying to find the best of an indifferent
lot when you might be able to go elsewhere and have examples of
really super best practice.
Ms Hobbs: I am on an international group, the
CIB, for construction product materials stewardship. We had our
first meeting last year. It was built upon a previous group that
was looking at design and deconstruction. We did a roundtable
with this group and I can honestly say that examples and information
from the UK were at least as good as anything else that was coming
out internationally around the table. That was not just Europe,
it was America, China, throughout—an international group.
We, the UK, had plenty to talk about in that international group,
so I do not think we should be scared of using our own UK examples.
Q748 Chairman: You would see that as
anecdotal evidence rather than hard and fast statistical evidence.
Ms Hobbs: We were the only ones who were able
to supply statistics in terms of the amount of waste that was
typically produced on construction sites. Very few other countries
seemed to have that information. This is the first step.
Mr Swain: In the UK we do some best practice
small projects, or islands of best practice, if you like, but
we do not do it continually on construction projects.
Q749 Lord Howie of Troon: I should say,
first of all, that I am a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers
and I have been involved in the construction industry for quite
a long time. I was the first of the Committee to query this waste
figure of 30 odd per cent, which, to be quite frank, I do not
believe. In attempting to support it, I was sent a report by the
Sustainable Development Commission. There is a section on construction
waste which I would like to turn to. It says, "The construction
and demolition industry contributes 33% to the UK's volumes of
waste." That is an entirely different figure. It is not 33%
of construction waste, it is the whole thing. What is more, it
includes both construction waste and demolition waste, and we
are told elsewhere that something like 90% of the demolition waste
is reused; it is not waste at all. I find these figures confusing
and I would like you to de-confuse me. The range of 13% to 30%
as an engineer just leaves me cold. I am not interested in a range
of statistics of that sort.
Ms Hobbs: The 30%, I think, relates to the amount
of waste. Say you had a load of construction materials delivered
to site to do a project, for example, 100 tonnes of material,
30% of the materials are being wasted. I do not agree with that
figure either. Each individual product has different wastage rates
and we do not know what the wastage rate is overall because nobody
has ever undertaken those sorts of studies, those mass amount
studies, so it is very much finger in the air job for that. In
terms of the 33%, that is basically saying that, of all the waste
the UK produces, which is around 335 million tonnes, one-third
of that waste is coming from the combined activity of the construction
and demolition industries. That is where the 33% comes from and
that is globally, compared to the overall amount of waste produced.
Demolition waste would still be classed as waste. Until it is
converted or reprocessed into a product, essentially it is classified
as waste. We still have that amount of waste being produced; it
is just that, of the waste being produced, most of it is being
recycled.
Lord Howie of Troon: I will not pursue
this, Chairman. I will merely say that I am convinced now that
the figures are an illusion.
Q750 Lord Methuen: Aggregates are often
compounds of a variety of wastes. Are there technical limits as
to the quantity and quality of the waste material that can be
re-used in this way?
Mr Swain: I would first query the question there
because primary aggregates are obviously aggregates that are quarried
materials, whereas secondary aggregates or recycled aggregates
do consist of a variety of waste streams. Yes, there are technical
limits, but that would be applicable to virgin primary aggregates
as well, so they are comparable in terms of specification of aggregate.
The concern, in terms of the variety of waste streams, is on the
quality of the feedstock in the first instance—whether it
has plastics or timber mixed in with it. There is a cross-contamination
issue. The work that the Waste Resource Action Programme has done
in terms of the waste Quality Protocol has been particularly useful
for identifying specifications, or a standard, if you like, for
recycled aggregates in that area. In terms of reusing aggregates
and recycled aggregates, it is the nature of the project and location
to market, and the cost of recycling it versus the cost of disposing
of it. Unfortunately, it is still sometimes cheaper to dispose
of the material than it is to recycle it and take it to the market
and reuse it.
Q751 Lord Methuen: The landfill tax—
Mr Swain: The landfill tax is beginning to bite
quite severely. On some projects it is still more economic to
dispose of it than reuse it and you have to remember that the
contractors are profit driven and are trying to make as much money
as they can with the project and deliver it on time. Unfortunately,
materials are wasted in that respect.
Q752 Lord Methuen: How well do we understand
the properties of these aggregate materials which contain waste?
Does our understanding limit the functions for which we can use
the materials?
Mr Swain: In terms of construction demolition
waste, we have a good handle on what we can and cannot do with
recycled secondary type aggregates from a construction project.
Ms Hobbs: Yes, definitely. There is good data
there.
Mr Swain: In terms of specification, we know
how these materials would perform in terms of the civil engineering
projects they could be used for.
Q753 Lord Haskel: You were explaining
how the excess is probably best got rid of in some ways. Is there
not any arrangement within the industry, as there are in many
other industries, where suppliers will take back excess aggregate
or building materials or whatever it is? Obviously you cannot
calculate to the nearest whatever it is how much you are going
to need, so usually suppliers will take it back and use it for
another order. Is that not a way of dealing with it?
Mr Swain: It certainly is and I would like to
see more of it. Unfortunately it does not happen a great deal.
You have to think of the range of construction projects we might
deal with from large to small. Certainly on a smaller project
I do not think you would see that unless you had a significant
buying power with the supplier. Construction is one of the only
industries I know of that over-orders material or calculates a
waste percentage into material with a view to wasting that material
before it has even been used it. When you open packs of materials
you might have damaged materials as well, so it is not just construction
and demolition waste, it is damaged materials that are wasted
when being stored improperly on site. That makes it difficult
for a supplier to come and collect part materials and part packs,
but I would certainly like to see more of that in the industry.
As a supplier, I would like to be able to offer that to some of
our larger customers.
Q754 Lord Methuen: Is part of the problem
in something like the construction industry—and I am thinking
of the use of plasterboard, for instance—that the sizes
in which materials are sold are not necessarily ideal for the
purposes for which they are going to be used?
Mr Swain: This is true. You have hit the nail
on the head there, yes. You are right in terms of how materials
are supplied as well. The supply chain needs to look at that.
The influence of clients and designers could again be very helpful
here, in looking at manufacturers and contractors in trying to
drive that improvement forward.
Ms Hobbs: That comes down to costs again. When
you get pre-cut plasterboard there is a cost attached to that.
As Andrew said, a lot of it is just down to costs at the end of
the day. It is quite often cheaper to buy bulk materials in and
waste them than it is to get the pre-cut plasterboard delivered.
Q755 Chairman: Cheaper for whom?
Ms Hobbs: Cheaper for the site, through usual
procurement routes.
Q756 Chairman: At the end of the day,
we are talking about a customer. We are not talking about a producer.
This seems ridiculous, that we, as consumers, whether big companies
or individuals, seem to be paying over the odds for more kit and
more materials simply because it is inconvenient for an inefficient
industry to get its finger out. Is that really what you are telling
us?
Ms Hobbs: It is not a factory line. A construction
site is not a factory line. I am not saying I agree with this
necessarily, but from the discussions I have had with the industry,
the cost penalties associated with delaying the project because
you have run out of a bit of plasterboard far outweigh the costs
of disposing of that waste plasterboard.
Mr Swain: I think the nature of contracts is
changing, which helps the situation. In a traditional civil engineering
project, the client gives a specification and a design for a project
and the contractor goes away and builds it at a certain cost.
Whatever he can save on the cost is money in his back pocket.
Now what is happening is the client, designer and the contractor
are working together in terms of cost savings, and value engineering
to engineer out waste and other problems with the project. I think
that is a step in the right direction, but we still have that
gap between the ultimate customer (the client) and the contractor
and his supplier of the material, because the contractor is the
customer of the supplier rather than the client, if that makes
sense.
Chairman: That is the point I was trying
to make.
Q757 Earl of Selborne: Could you tell
us if any research has been undertaken in the different waste
streams within the construction industry?
Ms Hobbs: The BRE is carrying out quite a lot
of research in terms of different ways of quantifying. We have
also worked with the Market Transformation Programme, where we
have looked at particular sectors (roofing products, flooring
products, plasterboard, insulation), quantified the amount of
waste that is being produced now, and modelled it into the future
to see if it there is an increasing or decreasing impact. There
are a lot of waste composition studies that either are being completed
or are under way that would give us better information in terms
of the non aggregate waste aspects.
Q758 Earl of Selborne: Could you give
us some flavour as to which waste streams you think are going
to be increasing?
Ms Hobbs: Insulation particularly is quite a
big waste stream that is going to increase in terms of volume.
If you think about it, you have the building regs that are requiring
increasing levels of insulation in buildings, so if you are then
saying that you have millions more metres square of insulation
going into buildings and 10% of that is wasted, typically, in
terms of off-cut material, then you have an increasing amount
of waste from insulation. When those buildings come to be demolished,
then you have increasing layers of insulation waste that are going
to come out during the demolition side of things. Currently it
is quite difficult to see how that waste is going to be diverted
from landfill in significant quantities. I would say that insulation
is one of the potential waste streams of the future that we are
going to have to deal with increasingly.
Q759 Earl of Selborne: It has been argued
to us that past research has focused too much on a limited number
of materials in a limited number of construction activities. Is
there a need for research into reprocessing techniques, including
those that can operate at a site level?
Mr Swain: The construction industry has been
quite proactive, looking at options for reusing materials on site
in terms of bulk materials, soils and recycled aggregates, but
I think you are right that we need to look at site-specific recycling,
or local areas around hotspots, or urban areas, if you like, for
recycling centres where small volumes of material which are normally
uneconomic to reprocess on site could be taken to be processed.
Whether that is on site or at an offsite facility within an urban
area, I think that would be very favourable. The industry has
also been proactive in looking at non-construction type waste,
in terms of replacing primary aggregates and cement replacements
and sand replacements in construction materials as well. There
is a lot of research and development going on at the moment, certainly
within my organisation and others, in terms of non-construction
waste within construction products.
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