Sustainable construction
experts BioRegional, and WasteWISE have
just launched a tool-kit to help UK stakeholders replicate North
America’s successful Building Material Reuse Centres (BMRCs).
These will be innovative, often not-for-profit ventures that reduce
building waste and costs whilst creating much needed construction
training opportunities. The six month development of this UK specific
tool-kit was funded by Defra’s
Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse and supported by reclamation
specialists MASCo.
The tool-kit can be downloaded from the
BioRegional Reclaimed website
www.bioregional-reclaimed.com/get_report.php
Ronan Leyden, of BioRegional commented:”
Our expert team has produced this toolkit so that social enterprises,
local authorities, and building companies can pick it up and run
with it. By setting up a BMRC, building and supplies companies will
save money from waste disposal costs and training opportunities
will be created. There are also great Corporate Social Responsibility
opportunities. There’s no reason why these Centres can’t
be just as successful as their North American counterparts.”
Lewis Hebert of WasteWISE added
‘Our joint project has already had early successes with funded
BMRC project development underway in the North East, the East and
South West of England, recognising the need to supplement the UK
toolkit with detailed regional market research.”
The publicly available tool-kit
is based on the success of a 300-strong BMRC network in North America.
It states a strong business case for why BMRCs can be successfully
set up in the UK and provides helpful details on how they can be
run. BMRCs could be set up a variety of ways in the UK. They are
based on a financially sustainable retail outlet that sells re-usable
building materials back to the trade and general public. The stores
can also generate income through services such as clearing site
materials, undertaking commercial salvage jobs and training people
for construction jobs, where there is still a serious shortage of
skilled workers.
To further support BMRCs, BioRegional
and WasteWISE are working to establish a national support network
to assist individual BMRCs to set up, access funding and share learning
with others.
BioRegional and WasteWise are
keen to hear from interested organisations and are investigating
funding streams both to help establish the national support organisation
and for individual BMRCs.
Contact: Ronan Leyden, Sustainable
Construction Team, BioRegional, ronan.leyden@bioregional.com,
020 8404 4897 and/or Lewis Herbert, WasteWISE Consultants, lewis@wastewise.org.uk
01223 411699
Background
The construction industry is the single largest source of waste
within England with its use of materials (over £30bn worth
annually) is estimated to create one fifth of the national carbon
footprint. The transport alone makes up a third of all road freight
traffic. Reuse of building products reduces waste and maximises
carbon savings. Yet an estimated 13% of all building products never
get used and end up in landfill (14 million tonnes a year).
BMRCs can help the industry meet
the recent Site Waste Management Plan Legislation and improve scores
in Code for Sustainable Homes and BREEAM whilst also reducing the
overall carbon footprint of a construction project.
This business opportunity complements
the UK’s salvage industry which increasingly focuses on “high-end”
architectural salvage and new and replica products. The BMRC mainstreams
the market for many of the lower value reusable building products
by retailing them to the DIY general public.
The DIY retail industry is worth
an estimated £8bn a year; emerging growth areas include ethical
and environmental products. The BMRC will provide an exciting retail
experience utilising high quality stock display, environmental/ethical
product labelling and electronic inventory (optional). |
