Cleaning up your act

From April 2008 all construction projects worth more than £250,000 will have to have a detailed site waste management plan (SWMP) in place.

A SWMP provides a structure for waste delivery and disposal at all stages of a construction project. In simple terms it addresses who will be responsible, what types of waste there may be, how the waste will be managed and measured, and which contractors will recycle and/or dispose of the waste.

There will be two levels of SWMP – standard will be for projects costing between £250,000 and £500,000 and detailed will be for projects costing more than £500,000.

If a project starts without a SWMP in place the person in charge of the project and the principal contractor will both be guilty of an offence. An individual director or manager of the organisation involved will also be guilty of an offence. The Environment Agency and the appropriate local authority will be responsible for enforcing this legislation.

The DTI first introduced the concept of SWMPs through a voluntary code of practice in 2004. The following year, The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act introduced a summary of measures,

including powers for statutory SWMPs for construction and demolition projects.

DEFRA then launched a consultation process from April 2007 through to July 2007 and on 1 October 2007, the government announced that it would be introducing the regulations in April 2008.

SWMPs are already part of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which was launched by the government in December 2006 as part of a package of measures aimed towards the attainment of zero carbon developments.

The costs involved in disposing of waste to landfill have been dramatically increasing in recent years. Not only are there disposal costs and landfill tax to take into consideration, but also the additional expenses of haulage, labour, notifications and paperwork and, from October 2007, the need to pre-treat all waste destined for landfill. This requirement comes from the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002.

Treatment does not have to be complicated. For example, source segregation would mean that a construction site producing plastics, wood and metal would place each type of waste in a separate skip. This would be regarded as pre-treated.

However, a high proportion of construction and demolition waste comprises concrete, sub-soils, soils, brick rubble, hardcore and asphalt, which up until now has been removed from sites in mixed loads. Since October 2007 this type of load has required pre-treatment. For example, it may be screened to separate the different fractions and types of waste from it, removing the recyclable components for further treatment and re-use leaving only the residue that needs to be disposed of.

If all this sounds like more paperwork and more things to do on site, bear in mind that there are benefits to managing waste. In the UK around 92 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste are disposed of each year, of which it is estimated that an incredible 13 million tonnes consists of unused material that has been classed as defective or damaged through bad materials management, for example inappropriate handling or storage.

As well as the associated environmental benefits, reducing this level of waste will lead to significant cost savings for developers and contractors. cm