An opinion piece by Katherine Adams, Technical Director, Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP)

ASBP has launched the ‘Reuse Now’ campaign to encourage greater reuse of building materials within the construction industry.

Our campaign is covering materials that come from building demolition (although that’s another argument for another day about whether we should be doing that!), strip-out and refit of interiors, as well as products used in new construction. We’re talking about a myriad of things including bricks, steel, timber, floor finishes, sanitaryware, radiators, lighting, glass partitions – and much more! And by reuse, I mean using the product for the same purpose with minimal processing (this discussion paper from the Construction Products Association provides a good insight into the different terms).  

A bit of background

I have been working in the area of construction resource efficiency for the last twenty years.  Back then, a few of us were promoting reuse, but it was a hard slog. And in many ways over the last few years we have been going in the wrong direction.

We recycle a lot of our waste, over 92% by weight (although a lot of this is downcycled where the value is lost). Recycling is a good news story but has come at the cost of reuse, and whilst we have a mature waste management industry that is set up for recycling, it’s a big mouth to feed. 

Figures shows, in fact, that reuse decreased from 2.3 million tonnes in 1998 to 752,000 tonnes in 2011.  And, we’re consuming ever more materials, globally 100 billion tonnes, with much of this going into our built environment.

Why now?

I don’t want to be all doom and gloom! Things are changing albeit at a slow place. There are more drivers in place, though there is a big gaping hole where it comes to policy.

More clients are measuring their embodied carbon, and a key way to reduce this is to increase reuse reused materials – reused steel sections, for example, can save a colossal 96% of embodied carbon. The requirements the Greater London Authority have put in place for Circular Economy Statements for referred developments is a gamechanger, where reuse is the preferred option within pre-demolition audits.

Other local authorities are starting to follow suit. Reuse can also offer significant cost savings, especially with the increasing rise in material costs. More companies are starting to offer reuse business models, obviously seeing the benefits this can bring in disrupting our very linear model of take-make-use-waste. These include for lighting, flooring and steel. Others have been doing this for a long time, with the architectural reclamation sector and the community sector reusing surplus materials and offcuts.  There are also more enablers around such as material exchanges, case studies and technical guidance, and there are research projects are proving the concepts of ‘Building as a Material Banks’ and ‘Material Passports’.

A good current example of reuse is at Meridian Water, where a £6bn, 25-year London regeneration programme led by Enfield Council has ambitious targets, based on holistic ‘doughnut economics’ where social opportunities, reduced environmental impact and economics all work together to give combined benefits to all.

One of its key themes revolves around implementing circularity, with an emphasis on matching products and materials from ‘donor’ projects with the upcoming ‘recipient’ projects, thus promoting the highest material value retention. This focussed workstream promoting greater reuse has led to the Enfield Excess Materials Exchange , a new digital platform activating the exchange of materials from construction projects across Enfield, including Meridian Water, helping to reuse materials and reduce waste. 

An example of how this works is in the recently demolished F Block which had to make way for a new road. A pre-demolition audit was carried out and the results fed into specific demolition contract requirements to salvage products, such as bricks, and convert concrete elements into Type 1 aggregates (to be used in the road project instead of primary aggregates). What is particularly unique is that these bricks were bonded with a cement mortar, so it was unclear how many would be reusable prior to demolition, with an initial estimate of 5,000 being salvageable. Post-demolition, 15,000 reclaimed bricks are now available on the exchange and need rehoming.

What is needed?

A lot is needed to make reuse common place, but we can’t use this as an excuse not to do it. We need clients to encourage reuse over recycling; we need manufacturers to take back products for reuse or for new companies to do this; we need designers to specify reclaimed products and design our buildings where products can be removed intact and easily for reuse; and contractors need to look at how they procure materials and what happens to their offcuts and surplus materials.

Waste management companies can start setting up areas to store products for reuse, as can local authorities. We need to have a better understanding of how we test products suitability for reuse, without destroying them in the process. We also need data, on where we can source reused products from both now and in the future and a better understanding of how much reuse is happening now. Blueprint business models which others can adopt (ASBP are doing this with their DISRUPT project on steel reuse). Some Government policy would be nice!

Get involved!

At ASBP we want to galvanise action and bring together all the good work that is happening under our Reuse Now campaign, so we can learn from each other and move quicker. By working together, we can make reuse easier! Do join us and our supporters, Cleveland Steel and Tubes and Reusefully in our campaign.  Why not make a start and join us today!