Developing a Strategic Approach to Construction Waste

Restricted – CommercialAEA/ ED02414/Issue 1Developing A Strategic Approach to Construction Wasteyour company i.e. haveyou had to employ anenvironmentalmanager; does itrequire more man days;paperwork; increasecosts; landfill gatecharges?industry lead players feel there is to muchEU forced legislation which does not helpthose most in need of help i.e. smallerconstruction companies because they arenot able to employ environmental managersand are not generally of the skills base tounderstand exactly what is expected ofthem in the legislation, and hence oftenwork illegally, not filling in all relevant wasteforms or disposing of waste correctly.There are several overlaps/overkills in theindustry, with the ""Duty of Care"" settingdown a whole list of basiclegislations/guidance, and other legislationsgoing into more detail on each issue i.e.listing pages of waste codes expected to beused in legislative disposal forms.It is felt that there is no clarity as to what theconstruction industry and companies shoulddo. As discussed above, the Govt. keepintroducing legislations (majority within thelast 10 years) but they do not understandthe average builder has not got thetechnical knowledge or time to adhere to allof the legislations e.g. Barry works all dayon these legislations, so how can smallbuilding firms be expected to do the samewhen they struggle with the time it takes tocomplete SWMPs. The EA has made thingsso complicated, average building sitemanagers do not understand them or theyare too complicated to fill in, so don'tcomplete them and illegal workingsincrease. There needs to be standardtraining, a syllabus and qualifications for allmembers of the industry e.g. Hazardouswaste needs to be sent to someone whoknows exactly how to deal with it.policy/strategy for recycling and segregationthat is adopted on all sitesTWConstr - have an environmental team foradvise and support. Unlike TWD we do nothave a set strategy and construction sites canset up their own contracts dependant on typeof project. We do have a supply chain for WMcontractors who meet our minimum standards.employed.2 AEA Energy & Environment