The Use of Waste Materials in Construction − Progress Made and Challenges for the Future

This paper charts the developments in environmental protection and waste and resource management from the latter part of the industrial age in the UK to the rise of sustainability in the late twentieth century associated with the Rio and Johannesburg Earth Summits. The particular focus of this paper is the role of improved waste and resource management practices, and increased use of waste and secondary materials in construction in contributing to the wider sustainability agenda. A number of challenges including technical, economic and those of perception have been overcome in relation to the use of recycled aggregates in construction over the last 20 years. Fiscal measures coupled with client demands for sustainability are ensuring that increased levels of recovery and recycling are achieved and that the recycled content of new construction projects is increasing. Such pressures should also help to increase the utility to which recycled aggregates are put, a process which needs to continue. Other waste sectors can also play a significant part in increasing the beneficial use of waste materials in construction. Tyres, glass and organic materials can have properties that are not only consistent with more conventional approaches, but can, in many case, be substantially better. There remains however, a continued need for research to underpin new, developing and evolving technologies and applications.