Increasing local reuse of building materials

This paper sets out the opportunity to increase the sustainability of construction, through increasing local reuse of surplus construction products from construction sites. This is based on a review of the situation in the US where the construction sector is already supported by centres to reuse surpluses from building sites in most urban areas, supplying these surplus building products to the do-it-yourself market. This creates new employment and training in new skills needed to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes. Centres are typically run as not-for-profit (for community benefit) enterprises so successfully that just one store has built 15 houses for the homeless with its trade surplus over the past 5 years. This paper investigates the opportunity to establish a similar reuse culture and centres in the UK. The UK has rising landfill taxes (to £80/t by 2014), site waste management plans and an established network of architectural salvage businesses which focus on high-value reclaimed items. There is an opportunity to kick-start a similar scale of reuse of surplus new construction products. However, the UK has not been moving in this direction. This paper sets out how a network of construction reuse centres could be established in the UK, some of the current barriers to this happening and how this could help support a shift to a resource-efficient and sustainable construction industry.