World Soil Day: Spotlight on Resource Reuse in Construction

Soil in our industry is critical in delivering all manner of groundworks. Laying the foundations for the built environment, it is used in its abundance, but often never given the due care and attention it requires, until the time comes to process it from a waste management perspective.

Costing the construction industry £3bn per annum, the statistics on soil waste to landfill are staggering. Around 32% of UK landfill waste comes from the construction and demolition of buildings, with the Environment Agency indicating that this amounts to 1m tonnes each year. As we work to long-term carbon reduction goals, with sustainability ever present in our minds, it begs the need to champion soil compliance routes that actively place resource reuse front and centre of our industry – in turn negating the vast sums of landfill space and money shelled out each year.

At Pick Everard, we firmly believe that collaboration is key to both maximising our everyday working relationships with our clients, as well as the wider construction industry. Far too often, we see examples of project management that could lessen the ongoing arguments in our sector around supply chain strain and material availability. Soil reuse is one such area.

For example, consider a housing development or multiple levelling up projects situated within one city or region. Here there are clear opportunities and advantages for soil to be reused in terms of resource, cost and sustainability directives. There are three main compliance routes to achieve this, but only one of them encourages active collaboration across the board.

The CL:AIRE Definition of Waste: Code of Practice was established in 2008 as a joint venture between CL:AIRE and the EA. Its purpose is to encourage and facilitate the reuse of soils in construction without going through a permitting route. In our experience, we’ve found that alternative methods, such an environmental permit or waste exemption, present difficulties for projects in terms of lengthy approval periods or restrictions in resource limits. What the DoW:CoP provides is a platform to reuse soil across the board, with construction firms and organisations able to log available soil and place requests via an online platform managed by CL:AIRE in a shared and collaborative manner.

When we consider this in terms of wider UK industrial ambitions, there is huge scope here for brownfield developments, which can use huge quantities of soil, to be able to reuse the resource effectively. Cities such London, Birmingham and Manchester and many more across the UK are key to these aims. If various interlinking organisations, both public and private sector, can work collaboratively, reusing soil from development to development, then the gains on the larger journey to net zero are huge.

Other countries are already making waves in this respect, such as in the Flanders region in Belgium, which reuses 95% of its construction and demolition waste, with excavated soil meticulously traced and reused. If we can achieve a similar level of buy in here in the UK, backed by government directives and environmental body support, we can raise an under-developed area of waste management into the fore – taking discussion away from companies penalised under the waste management act to those that are actively championing resource reuse in a smart, effective manner.

When it comes to soil reuse this World Soil Day, circular construction should be at the forefront of our minds, helping contribute to healthy and balanced ecosystem that will last for generations to come.