It’s always best, when considering demolishing a building, to ask certain questions before beginning any work – even planning work. The first, and perhaps the biggest, is to ask why are you wanting to demolish the existing site – can it be redeveloped or can elements of the site be kept?
A pre demolition audit can help answer these questions – along with assessing the materials within the buildings and their potential value. When you have all of this information, that’s when you need to look at whether to refurbish, renovate or demolish.
So, you have decided to demolish – what will you be doing with all of those materials?
Best practice says you should try to reclaim as much waste as possible, and there are four key ways to handle demolition waste reclamation, known as the Four R’s – each with their own advantages:
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Reduce
Are there any areas of the building you can keep? Reducing the amount of waste through not demolishing a part of a building will help you to save time and money through sorting or transportation.
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Reuse
What areas can be reused in their current form? Timber or metal beams, intact fireplaces, heating or electrical systems? If these, and more, can be reused in the new building on the same site, this will help you save on some new build materials cost and will reduce time spent recycling or disposing of these materials – saving time in the process.
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Recycle
When materials on your site can’t be reused, can they be recycled? This is taking the materials and using them in a different form – for example taking a timber beam and shredding this, to reform into MDF or a similar material – for use in the new building.
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Recover
This option is often best for teams that aren’t able to go through options 1 – 3, for example if there’s little time to complete these activities. Recovering materials in essence means to send all mixed (unsorted) waste materials to a facility, where they will look to reuse or recycle the waste materials externally.
The more materials that can be dealt with using a mixture of the above options, the higher the chance of you saving money through saving on build cost, selling materials that have been identified as having value, or even just avoiding landfill tax – so it’s all to play for when it comes to the Four R’s!
To find out more about the Four R’s or waste management in general, please contact the BRE SMARTWaste team who can help you today on 01923 664 471 or email: [email protected].