Reducing waste
Reducing waste
Minimising waste and avoiding landfill
As part of our Target 2012 goals we aim to halve waste to landfill by 2012, and specifically set out to establish a waste baseline, sign up to the 'Halving Waste to Landfill' campaign and increase the use of our logistics centre which cuts waste, by diverting surplus materials to where they can be gainfully reused.
Further progress towards all our waste goals has been made during the year, the highlight of which was signing up to the WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) initiative to halve landfill waste.
With the construction industry guilty of generating almost a third of all waste in the UK, we were delighted to become one of the first engineering contractors to join this flagship campaign.
Our first approach to waste is to avoid its generation where possible. One major way of achieving this has been the launch of a new system designed to limit on-site waste generation.
By recording, controlling and re-using excess materials, the logistics centre has diverted reusable materials from construction projects which otherwise would have been recycled or disposed of in landfill. It has also generated financial savings of £246,000 in its inaugural year.
A new initiative which will phase in new and more streamlined office equipment, and the promotion of a ‘Think Before You Print’ culture, is also being launched. This aims to reduce our use of paper and printing consumables, and also reduce both waste and energy use. In addition to these environmental benefits the changes will ultimately save £900,000 in printing costs.
In 2010/11 we began to assess waste volumes arising from our office locations, our construction and manufacture related operations, and on our customer sites.
As a specialist sub-contractor NG Bailey is not typically required to produce site waste management plans for most projects. However, as we aim to minimise waste we proactively estimate and report waste volumes to our customers on our sites.
During 2010/11 waste data for all our sites has been estimated using data from projects where BRE’s Smartwaste system has been used by the principal contractor or construction client, and where NG Bailey have been employed as a specialist sub-contractor and requested to estimate waste produced.
An estimated total volume of 14,854m3 of waste has been generated by NG Bailey in 2010/11. The chart below indicates the proportion of waste generated at each type of location.
This chart illustrates the volume of waste material that is recovered for recycling.
