London West, UK - What this means is a massive loss of resources, energy and employment. UK Government policy is woefully adrift of anything meaningful in this area, possibly through ignorance of and bad advice from so-called professionals of the real issues.
BRICKS - Energy Values
It takes 4kwH of energy to make a Handmade or Wirecut Brick and 1.6kwH to make a machine-made Fletton (ignoring embodied energy within the clay).
Each year 3.5 billion new bricks are manufactured in Britain É. and 2.5 billion reclaimable bricks are landfilled.
Around 40m bricks are reclaimed for reuse as bricks. The energy cost of reclaiming them is about 9 wH of human work per reclaimed brick (= 0.009 kwH which represents a total of 135 full-time jobs cleaning bricks each year, and potentially 6,750 if all landfilled bricks were reclaimed.)
Around 100m bricks are crushed each year. The energy cost of crushing is 2 wH of fuel per crushed brick plus the loss of the embodied energy of up to 4 kwH per brick = 4.002 kwH. (This represents about 12 full time jobs, assuming 1 person attending the crusher, and 625 jobs if all landfilled bricks were recycled.)
Reclaiming old bricks is 400 times more energy efficient, and creates 11 times the employment, than Recycling them.
It takes about 1.5 kwH per mile per tonne to move goods by road. A reclaimed Fletton can be moved 320 mls and a Wirecut 800 mls before the energy cost of a new brick or a recycled brick is reached. But new bricks are always moved around 50 - 100 mls, so 400mls and 900 mls may be more realistic figures. The best reclaimed brick is one reclaimed and then reused on the site from which it was demolished.
RECYCLED v RECLAIMED BRICKS - PRICES
A landfilled brick costs between 1 - 2 pounds per tonne to dispose of, or about 0.3p - 0.6p per brick. A few sites allow free tipping of unmixed 'clean' hardcore. Around London some sites will even pay for hardcore in winter.
A crushed brick will sell as secondary aggregate for around 3.50 - 6.50 pounds per tonne or roughly 1p - 2p per brick.
Reclaimed Machine Made Flettons sell for 15p - 20p. Very few are sold, probably less than a million.
Reclaimed Wirecut Bricks sell for between 20p - 35p. Thinner bricks are more expensive.
Reclaimed Handmade Bricks sell for between 30p - 50p.Thinner bricks are in short supply.
On one site alone in Bristol in 1994 about 7 million 1906 Cattybrook Three Inch Wirecut Bricks were disposed of as landfill for lack of a buying market. Multiply this by 350 and you get 2.5 billion trashed bricks in the UK.
The cost of reclaiming a brick on site is between 15p - 18p but if it is moved off site haulage, storage and marketing costs must be met. Demolition contractors are offered small sums for many old bricks by reclamation dealers which encourages trashing.
A HIGHLY REGULATED MARKET
There is no such thing as a 'free' market in reclaimed materials. It is affected by a raft of regulations among which are:
1. Pressure from 'engineered' landfill site operators for clean fill.
2. Greater H&SE regulation requiring stricter controls over hand labour on demolition sites, which encourages bigger machinery.
3. Planning procedures and public opinion encourage rapid demolition. Vandalism and theft occur as a result of buildings being left empty for years.
4. Some authorities refuse to allow the use of reclaimed material.
5. Professional indemnity insurers exclude non British Standard materials from indemnity cover.
6. The establishment of reclamation businesses is discouraged in the UK by conservation minded planners.
7. The new controlled waste regulations encourage fly-tipping.
8. The EC Construction Products Directive bans the sale of reclaimed materials.
9. The new UK landfill tax are encouraging more fly-tipping but are not encouraging reclamation. One 1995 report from the construction industry said that fly-tipping around London had reached epidemic proportions since the introduction of Landfill Taxes.
EC DEMOLITION WASTE DIRECTIVE?
Plans are at an advanced stage for a new target driven EC directive for recycling demolition waste that will not follow the EC Recycling Protocol but will give any of the four recycling methods equal merit. The drafting committee is being led by Germany and Denmark. German federal recycling laws require that all demolition waste is separated and recycled. Specially licensed demolition contractors are paid additional money for recycling costs. But bricks are crushed and no reclamation takes place. Fly-tipping, illegal burning and the illegal export of demolition waste to neighbouring countries is common.
We suspect that commercial and political pressures will mean that the UK will acquiesce to a Directive that will damage UK reclamation and encourage recycling. A target-driven directive will result in more capital intensive recycling, and less employment extensive reclamation.
This was torpedoed by Salvo, who threatened to take the EU to the European Court if a Directive was recommended because the ad-hoc committee did not contain, nor consult, any European reclamation business. Carl Heinz Zachmann, then head of DG12 anbd chair of the 200 strong committee was not impressed and contacted me by phone in Ireland, to no avail. That directive, the proposed EU Demolition Waste Streams Directive was quietly shelved.
TOXIC PROBLEMS
Two types of toxicity can be found in reclaimed materials: EMBODIED and ACQUIRED toxicity.
EMBODIED toxicity : the material itself is toxic eg asbestos, some hardwoods, metals, and stone. Asphalt is considered toxic in Holland and PVC is considered toxic in Germany but neither are yet considered toxic in the UK.
ACQUIRED toxicity : contaminated material
1. By Treatment - such as old treated timber
2. By Association - such as woodblock set in asphalt
3. By Use - such as masonry from chemical works. (There are already stringent regulations governing demolition of materials from contaminated sites)
ISCOWA (Utrecht, Holland 1994) : reclaimed materials with hidden toxicity, either a currently known toxic risk or a possible future one, are better reused than buried in a landfill site or dispersed into the atmosphere via incineration.
Instrumentation will be developed, but criteria will constantly shift as safe materials are declared toxic.
Future Codes of Practice :
Salvo is trying to establish one for the Reclamation Industry. The DoE has recommended one for Recycled Aggregates.
The Salvo Code was formed later in 1995, after three year's of meetings and consultation with the UK trade
DEMOLITION CHECKLIST
1. Assess value of reclaimable materials.
2. Check to see if reclaimed materials can be reused in the new project.
3. Ask for 2 prices -
a. Dismantling & Reclamation
b. Conventional Demolition to Landfill.
(and 2 Method Statements)
4. Get a Reclamation Contractor to tender alongside conventional demolition contractors.
5. Allow sufficient time in the contract for reclamation to take place.
6. For maximum benefit allow time for marketing whole components, even whole buildings.
7. Ensure that the building is secure, preferably occupied, and photograph all old items. Paint the underside of roof slates with scaffolding paint etc.
SPECIFICATION CHECKLIST
1. Reuse all items removed from building jobs within the job in question using Reclamation before Recycling protocol.
2. Allow space to separate waste. Keep it secure. If space is not available on site then consider renting land/covered space to store reusable materials.
3. Always source reclaimed materials before specifying them.
4. Always use reversible fixings like lime mortar, screws not glues, so that future reclamation is possible.
5. Don't contaminate new or reclaimed materials with toxic chemicals.
6. A high proportion of construction waste is caused by loss of new materials through carelessness, over-ordering, bad storage, inadequate supervision, non-returnable packaging. Write principles for good site practice into prelims etc.
©Thornton Kay Salvo March 1995, February 1996.
Created 8 April 1995, amended 18 February 1996.
Story Type: News
ID: 54184
Date Modified: August 09, 2010, 09:23 AM
