Construction Waste Management Best Practice

IntroductionImplementing a best practice approach to waste management across construction projects can significantly reduce the waste you send to landfill, saving you money, time and the environment.

This Raymond Brown Waste Solutions guide contains recommendations to identify and implement a best practice approach around the following:

• Improving on-site segregation of waste• Making more efficient use and reuse of existing materials• Planning ahead to reduce overspending on resources• Ensuring that skips and waste containers are fully utilised• Minimising waste movements to reduce carbon footprint• Preventing the creation of unnecessary waste.

Adopting the principles of the waste hierarchy, encourages us to prevent, reuse, recycle and recover waste before disposing of it by landfill. These preferred environmental options are also the foundation to making significant cost and time savings.

We are proud to consistently achieve recycling rates for our customers of above 90%, as we strive for zero waste to landfill. By partnering with our customers and sharing our suggestions for improvements, we believe this can be achieved. This document will assist you in creating a framework to ensure that waste is considered at every stage of your project in close collaboration with your site workforce as well as third party contractors and suppliers. Should you require any further information or advice, please do not hesitate to contact us.

0302

Contents

03 Introduction

04 Site Waste Management Plans

05 Monitoring, Measuring and Reporting

06 On-site Segregation

07 Your Waste Compound Area

04

Site Waste Management PlansThough not a legal requirement, the creation and implementation of a Site Waste Management Plan (SWMP) is considered best practice. A SWMP can improve the management of waste across your site and associated costs.

A project SWMP should be compiled with the design team, contractor and subcontractors, with objectives to:

• Maximise the reuse, recycling and recovery of waste to improve resource efficiency and increase project profitability.

• Maintain full audit reports of waste removed from site.• Monitor compliance with environmental regulations.• Promote awareness of environmental responsibilities by engaging with the workforce and subcontractors.

Your SWMP will be dependent on your company’s procedures and practices, as well as the size and type of project, as a minimum it should address the following:

Minimisation: Investigating the initial preparation and concept design phase of your project and looking to design waste out, with the aim to reduce waste before it arrives on site.

Forecast: Estimate waste arisings and quantities and then identify waste streams required for the different parts of the project to enable optimum segregation.

Targets and Objectives: Set SMART objectives to focus on what you want to achieve inline with the waste hierarchy. This could be, to decrease the amount of general mixed waste generated.

Waste reduction actions: Outline what actions you are going to take to reduce waste. Establish initial protocols for waste handling and segregation, and determine how you will protect materials from damage or theft.

Education: Work out how you are going to communicate the SWMP within the workforce and with contractors on site and how you will engage with them on the waste hierarchy and encourage best practice.

Waste disposal specification: Describe your waste streams and identify all companies who will be removing waste from site and their registration numbers. Identify all disposal sites and ensure they have the correct permits.

Key Performance Indicators: After the project is complete, you waste data should be analysed to generate feedback about the effectiveness of your SWMP. This will allow you to benchmark your performance against other sites, projects and national averages.

Reporting: Your final report should show your total actual waste arisings against your forecast. This will enable you to identify areas for improvement on future projects.

Construction performance: Monitor all the waste movements throughout the life of the project and create a report of your total waste arisings. We can make this easier with the use of our cloud-based waste management portal, see p5. You may also collect data on segregation rates, landfill diversion and wastage rates of different materials. This will help you compare waste levels against your targets and objectives.

Monitoring, Measuring and Reporting: Cloud-Based Waste Management PortalRaymond Brown provides a bespoke waste management portal to achieve sustainable solutions for all of our customers.

05

Key Benefits of the Portal:

Our next generation cloud-based technology provides you with access to all of your waste data at anytime, giving you complete control over your waste management and the waste streams generated on each site.

The portal gives you complete traceability of your waste to evidence the benefits achieved by recycling and to help your business save money. It provides you with the ability to create detailed reports, view invoices, download weights and see all your tickets.

All of our drivers have handheld mobile devices which capture signatures, take photographs and record all required information to improve the accuracy of your waste segmentation analysis. All documentation can be sent electronically to any device and we will be able to update you via email on your driver’s progress at any stage of the service. We can also amend your own preferences on the stage of the operation you would like to be updated on.

Full Control of your Waste:The portal provides you with full control of your waste management, such as:

• Expenditure • Waste breakdown• Recycling rates • Weight reports• Recycling percentages • Tipping location• Segregation information

ACCESS SECURELY ANYWHEREAccess the portal via computers, tablets or smart phones.

FULL SITE WASTE REPORTINGAll information and reports can be downloaded and exported.

SAVE MONEY AND TIMEThe portal stores all invoices for you so you can view them at the click of a button.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY All your waste data can be completely paperless.

COMPLETE TRACEABILITY OF YOUR WASTEHave full control over your waste management and the streams generated on your construction site.

On-site Segregation

06

Taking responsibility for your waste on-site enables you to control every aspect of your waste management, maximising your opportunities for reusing and recycling.

Separating as many waste streams as possible is fundamental to dramatically reducing your overall spend through cheaper disposal of the key waste streams. Properly maintained and well run waste segregation can significantly reduce collection costs by improving the utilisation rates of skips, resulting in fewer skip collections throughout the project.

A well organised site will be much safer and more likely to be completed on time and to budget. Complying with industry best practice demonstrates a business that can dispose of and manage their waste in a responsible and ethical manner.

Training Staff:Training and educating your staff on your site’s waste policy and the waste hierarchy will motivate them to ensure your waste segregation is maximised. They should be encouraged to achieve the best possible environmental outcomes in all their operations undertaken on behalf of your business.

07

Your Waste Compound AreaSetting up a waste segregation compound area will maximise opportunities for waste streams to be recycled and cost savings to be achieved. We recommend that you segregate your waste into the following main waste streams:

• General Mixed Waste • Green Waste • Plasterboard• Chalk and Clay • Concrete and Rubble • Soil • Inert Waste • Metals • Wood

Allowing a minimum gap between containers will enable safe and efficient loading. Please find below examples layouts of sites which have achieved excellent recycling rates and cost savings. Example 1 - Large Building Site Waste Segregation Area

General Mixed Waste(20 Yd)

On a typical housing development, using non-segregated general mixed waste skips would achieve a recycling rate of circa. 85%, however, we estimate that by segregating out wood, inert material and metal, the project could achieve a recycling rate of over 95% and cost savings of over 5%.

Wood Waste(12 Yd)

Plasterboard Waste(8 Yd)

Inert Waste(6 Yd)

Example 2 - Medium Site Waste Segregation Area

Example 3 - Small Site Waste Segregation Area

Example 1 - Poor Site Waste Segregation

Container Type Length Width

4 Yard Skip 1.8m 1.22m

6 Yard Skip 2.6m 1.52m

8 Yard Skip 3.2m 1.75m

12 Yard Skip 3.7m 1.75m

15 Yard Ro-Ro 6.07m 2.23m

20 Yard Ro-Ro 6.07m 2.23m

35 Yard Ro-Ro 6.07m 2.23m

Skip Size Guide:

40 Yard Ro-Ro 6.07m 2.23m

Height

0.96m/4”

0.96m

1.22m

1.22m

1.68m

1.22m

1.62m

2.39m

2.39m

General Mixed Waste(12 Yd)

Wood Waste(8 Yd)

Plasterboard Waste(8 Yd)

Inert Waste(6 Yd)

Metal Waste(6 Yd)

General Mixed Waste(8 Yd)

Plaster-boardWaste(6 Yd)

Inert Waste(6 Yd)

Signage:We can provide clear colour coded and branded signage for each of your skips to assist with the set up within your waste segregation areas.

Waste Segregation Area:We can advise you in designing a waste segregation area at a central location on your site, this will provide you with greater control over your waste and will allow you to ensure that it is being segregated correctly. It will also mean less disruption when exchanging the skips.

General Mixed Waste Skips:We strongly recommend that, wherever possible, mixed waste skips are minimised on construction projects. This will help to encourage full segregation of waste and the stockpiling of relevant materials for reuse.

Site LimitationsShould there be size limitations on site or restricted access it may not be possible to establish a full waste segregation area. There are a range of alternative options which we offer and can therefore be explored, such as:

• Wait and load skip exchanges• Grab hire service• Reduced-size waste compounds

Raymond Brown Waste Solutions LtdA303 Enviropark, Drayton Road, Barton Stacey, Hampshire SO21 3QS

Contact UsIf you would like further information on waste segregation best practice, please contact us:

T: 01264 720 257E: waste.solutions@raymondbrown.co.uk