All together now - embracing reuse
The UK’s Alliance for Sustainable Building Products is spearheading a ‘Reuse Now’ campaign. Sarah Morgan brings us up to speed from its most recent Reuse Summit.
With more than 100 delegates representing a cross-section of the construction industry, there was a feeling of momentum at the ‘Reuse Summit’ hosted by the UK’s Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) and the Finishes & Interiors Sector (FIS) towards the end of last year.
The construction industry produces around 60Mt of construction and demolition waste annually in the UK. While much of this is recovered and recycled, only a small percentage is reused. Estimates suggest that 22.3MtCO₂e could be saved over nine years by increasing the reuse of construction products.
Relaunched in 2023, ASBP’s ‘Reuse Now’ campaign aims to encourage greater reuse of building materials and accelerate the transition to a more resource-efficient, low-carbon, circular economy, as well encourage growth of low/zero-carbon industries and supply chain models.
Kicking off the event, ASBP, FIS and Innovate UK representatives were keen to promote what is already happening in this space, but with a strong view that the sector needs to build on this concertedly and collaboratively.
Maintaining momentum
Amy Peace of Innovate UK shared details about the ‘Longer in-use and Reuse’ sprint, which aims to build a community of engaged professionals. This sprint has begun investigations into how UK manufacturing could minimise materials use and waste through product lifetime extension and reuse. The sprint will explore the right behaviour to retain value, product value retention and end-of-life resource recovery. This is part of a wider 'Resource Efficiency for Materials and Manufacturing' programme to help businesses diversify their offerings.
Introducing UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Materials and Manufacturing Vision 2050, Peace also highlighted the funding UKRI could facilitate in defined areas for further development.
Warranties, however, are a significant barrier to reuse, noted Penny Gowler, Head of Sustainability at Elliott Wood. She suggested that take-back schemes could help in getting products re-warrantied for reuse.
Gowler stated the process for obtaining a CE Mark is much the same for virgin materials and for reuse – the main difference being that the first stage involves a reuse specialist or stockholder rather than a manufacturer. The UK CA and European CE Marks, she added, could help alleviate nervousness among stakeholders in using second-hand materials.
Gilli Hobbs, Partner at Reusefully, highlighted the Netherlands example of adding environmental impacts to the cost of a project to stimulate the reuse of materials, and drew attention to the Superlocal project in Heerlen. This circular area development is diverting materials from two vacant high-rise apartment buildings for the construction of 130 new homes and a communal area.
While Peter Kelly, Group Director of Sustainable Operations at ISG, put a spotlight on the Entopia building project in Cambridge UK, as a showcase for circular economy strategy. The entire building is reported to have saved 21,000kg of CO₂e through using reclaimed materials such as the lighting and other fixtures. He concluded by saying, 'This is not an ordinary project. But it needs to be'.
In this vein, Matthew Morris, Architectural Technologist at Hawkins\Brown, drew attention to three more case studies.
The TEDI-London Institute for future engineers in Canada Water uses materials from an old print works nearby. The volumetric modular solution also allowed rapid construction through offsite manufacture, reportedly generating zero waste-to-landfill. The second phase of development has used reconditioned, pre-loved standard modules, wall and window components. The buildings will be in use for 10 years before the whole modules or components are disassembled to continue their life elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the refurbishment of the Grade II-listed 1 Golden Lane site in Barbican, London, into a sustainable office space will retain reportedly 95% of the existing building structure, and prioritises the retention and reuse of existing materials as well as the conservation of the building’s heritage. The alterations to the existing structure are limited to the creation of step-free access to the main entrance and necessary repairs to the original façade.
Finally, Morris talked about how a site on 55 Great Suffolk Street in the old Victorian Ludgate warehouse in London, and its neighbour, the Roots in the Sky development, will use 139t of structural steel that was reclaimed from a demolished office building in the city. This process reportedly saves 25t in carbon emissions, five times the savings that would have been made though recycling by smelting.
Steel stacks up
Speaking of steel, a survey carried out among attendees at the Summit revealed that steel is the most frequently reused among the construction products.
Sarah Trahair-Williams, Development Manager at the FORE Partnership, noted how 40t is being salvaged from a former House of Fraser department store that is being demolished for FORE’s new Tower Bridge Court project. Of this, 16t can be reused. She recognised that reusing 1930s steel was tricky but highlighted the possibility.
Treasure trove
Justin Robinson, Founder of Reyooz, is a great believer in the old saying 'one person’s waste is another’s treasure'. He noted that 80% of the 18Mt of office furniture waste is landfilled or burned annually in the UK, with less than 20% recycled, yet 80% of it is reported to be in good or new condition. Inspired by a love of Freecycle, he conceived and developed Reyooz, which stocks office furniture and equipment from corporate clearances, supplying schools, charities and SMEs to date.
Nigel Harvey, CEO of Recolight, a not-for-profit recycling scheme for waste electrical and electronic equipment, has 200 members from the lighting producer sector. He spoke about his experience of getting his legal team to limit the liability of the donor when handing on materials for reuse.
He felt that with the current government position on climate action it was for businesses to step in and meet expectations.
While Paul Woolvine, CEO of IOBAC, highlighted how flooring adhesive often ends up in landfill and that fully recoverable magnetic tabs could be used instead.
Working imaginatively together
Kelly noted that, in the current reuse projects, 'the stars [did] have to align a bit', with the right connections, luck and knowledge. He stressed he was more than willing to work with manufacturers, but encouraged them to talk to each other, adding that he was trying to set up a reuse network.
Morris admitted there was a limited market for reuse projects at present, with a vast number of individuals working in the sector that need to be convinced.
Trahair-Williams felt there was a need to move away from bespoke buildings and asserted that reuse was a more cost-effective solution. She expressed that clients need to embrace some imperfections for reuse to take off.
Howard Button, from the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, questioned modern methods of construction from a reuse perspective. He gave the example of HS2 (a planned high-speed railway line in the UK), where nothing is recoverable.
Lavery added, 'There are some dying trades out there that we use very heavily.' He said he was trying to reinvent these professions and was conscious that, 'there are a lot of people that are really struggling to get into the workforce, especially with disabilities'. Reuse could be a positive force in this area.
Materials dating
The potential of reuse digital hubs was explored at ASBP’s follow-up webinar, as part of the ‘Reuse Now’ campaign, with the Excess Materials Exchange, Materials Reuse Portal and Reyooz.
All these platforms provide a go-between in the reuse process. Excess Materials Exchange matches the material, product or waste stream to a new high-value reuse option, assuring quality and traceability.
Reyooz, mentioned earlier, is working with over 300 companies to help them reduce their waste, setting up the logistics to catalogue and redistribute office furniture and fittings in the form of a trading platform.
Finally, the CIRCuIT Material Reuse Portal is a non-commercial EU Horizon-funded project that provides an open-source platform for material reuse over specified areas. Circular Construction in Regenerative Cities (CIRCuIT) is behind it and is a collaborative project that ran from 2019-23 and involved 31 partners across the built environment chain in Copenhagen, Hamburg, the Helsinki region and Greater London. CIRCuIT's objective was to demonstrate how cities can scale and replicate circular economy activities.
Nitesh Magdani of Net Positive Solutions summed up the feeling at the event that 'even the best-case scenario isn’t good enough'. We are over-consuming within the context of wider climate change. 'The circular economy does seem to be stuck in the future', but we need to action it today.
