Plan launched to bring USA’s successful building material re-use centres to UK

Story published 28.04.08

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).