How to develop your Sustainable Site Waste Management Plan

As a forward-thinking construction pro, you probably were already aware that…

• Up to 10% of your construction budget is spent on waste management and disposal
• Up to 30% of your on-site waste materials go to waste without ever being used
• Landfill tax will continue to rise, impacting project cost and margins (currently £96.70 per tonne)
• The cost of ‘virgin’ materials can be up to 75% more expensive than recycled/reused

The construction industry is the UK’s biggest consumer of natural resources, more than 400 million tons of material per year, and produces more than a third of the UK’s total waste output.

What does this mean for me and my business?

There is a growing urgency for businesses to demonstrate Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) to owners, stakeholders and the public, which is where a modern sustainable SWMP can provide hard evidence of the contribution to lowering this impact.

All projects in England with an estimated construction cost of over £300,000 must have a SWMP before work begins. Therefore, alongside being compliant,  this is your opportunity to modernise your approach and stop wasting budget, resources and the environment. It’s time to create modern sustainable SWMP to:

• Improve resource efficiency and increase project profitability by maximising reuse, recycling and recovery of waste, in order to minimise disposal into landfill.
• Ensure responsible waste disposal by maintaining a full audit trail of waste removed from site and monitoring compliance with environmental regulations.
• Promote awareness of environmental responsibilities among the workforce and wider stakeholders in order to improve your overall environmental management performance.

An effective sustainable SWMP can help you understand the true cost and value of your waste and resource efficiency. The cost of waste management is more than paying a waste contractor to remove the waste from site, it is also:

• The purchase costs of any materials wasted
• Cost of waste storage, transport, treatment and disposal
• Losses from failing to resell the material to salvage
• Losses from failing to reuse material
• The time and cost of labour for on-site waste handling
• Cost of poor packing or over-filling skips for double handling labour

With successful planning, monitoring and reporting the feedback and findings from your Sustainable SWMP will allow you to benchmark your performance against previous projects and the national averages, whilst allowing you to identify best practices, success and shortcomings of the plan for future mitigation. The goal will be to manage a continual improvement roadmap to drive greater efficiency, cost reduction and positive environmental credentials.

To find out how to unlock value from your waste, download your free Sustainable SWMP for modern construction firms now.