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Environmental Limited| London |
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Do I still need a Site Waste Management Plan?
We may or not be trying to recycle at home, which can be a time consuming and arduous. But when it comes to recycling waste on a building site, you need a plan . . a site waste management plan. At the domestic level we might have 3 bins (waste streams) for segregation of waste, and collection is already arranged. With construction waste we may be dealing with dozens of waste streams; steel, copper, alloys, clean woods, contaminated wood, plaster board, concretes, bricks (reuse or crushing?), and in addition to this we have to consider where the waste is going, there may be recovery requirements, meaning landfill is not an option, this is particularly true in the higher levels of code for sustainable homes.
For projects over £500,000 you may be asked to compile a site waste management plan, and if you are over a further higher threshold then you will need to make it a working document with updates and re-estimations throughout the project.
The regulations that stipulate the need for a SWMP in this instance are the The Site Waste Management Plans Regulations 2008 within this legislation the numerous requirements of a SWMP are outlined.
There will be various sources of wastes and from these sources there
will be numerous types of specific wastes generated.
The legislation sets out the requirements of the plans, and they are
rather long winded.
When deciding you waste management plan
strategy you should consider what your waste stream is likely to be and
perhaps investigate some recovery options.
A good recovery option is incorporation of
inert materials in off site earth works. There are waste recovery
options for many types of construction waste, woods can go for energy
recovery, metals for recycling / decycling.
If this all sounds like it might be too time consuming (it is) then give
SWEL a ring and we will make you your own Site Waste Management Plan.
Contact SWEL
In the governments red tape challenge we see the aim to abolish Site Waste Management Plans:
"You told us to remove Site Waste Management Plans Regulations because they force companies to spend time and money estimating their waste production when they could be reducing waste through more effective activities, such as training employees."
In there consultation they concluded:
We, therefore, intend to repeal the Regulations, in line with our initial announcement. As such, we intend to include the repeal of the Regulations with a series of other Red Tape Challenge measures with a common commencement date of October 1st 2013.
However, in built up areas such as central London Site Waste Management Plans still form an important part of medium to large scale development planning applications. The aim being to minimise the amount of waste going to landfill, and minimise transport of site, which would create extra traffic movements.
If your project is looking to score credits under BREEAM or CfSH, then the Site Waste Management Plan will include information on targets and how these targets will be achieved. As with any written plan or system the success of the plan relies heavily on how ell the plan is enforced on site. Contractors on site need to be contractually obliged to follow the methods set out in the waste management plan, otherwise it is likely that your targets will not be met.
No matter what stage you are at in the process it is important to segregate wastes at the point of production, if you stockpile mixed wastes with the intention of separating them later, then you are just creating a situation where double handling will take place, with the negative impacts of lost time and repeated emissions such as dust.
Example p[projects where we have written Site Waste Management Plans
Site Waste Management Plan for redevelopment of site for multiresidential use, BREAAm and CfSH target built in to report. A raft of methods suggested for prevention, and reduction of waste along with recommendations for the legal handling of wastes.
Site Waste Management Plan for redevelopment of site for multiresidential use and for commercial use, BREAAm and CfSH target built in to report. A raft of methods suggested for prevention, and reduction of waste along with recommendations for the legal handling of wastes. Demolition surveys were not completed at the time of report issue and as such estimates were made regarding volumes of concrete waste.
