Construction research project could limit landfill

The University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is developing a pioneering project that could dramatically reduce the quantity of rubble from demolished buildings going to landfill. Academics and industry partners are hoping to revolutionise the construction sector, by earmarking materials for reuse or recycling at the design stage, in order to avoid them ending up on the scrapheap.

An £800 000 grant has been secured from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Innovate UK, to enable researchers to develop a sophisticated computer programme capable of slashing the proportion of landfill in the UK originating from the construction industry, which is currently between 30 – 40%.

Professor Lukumon Oyedele, Director of the Bristol Enterprise Research and Innovation Centre at UWE, believes that it will allow businesses to make savings on the purchase of new materials, thereby also shaving 10% off total construction costs.

He said: “Landfill in the UK is getting reduced and reduced, and the Government is always keen on exploring ways it can divert waste from landfill. Thirty to forty per cent of waste going to landfill comes from the construction sector through construction waste and demolition waste.

“At the moment, at the end of a building’s life, it is demolished. Some materials will be recycled, some will be remanufactured and some will go to landfill.

“With our tool, from the design stage of the building we want to look at the deconstruction plan. We want to look ahead to 20 or 30 or 50 years’ time at the end of the building’s life. It’s about looking at the deconstruction plan now rather than when the building is being demolished.”

“It will change the entire construction industry – it’s as simple as that. There’s no tool at the moment that’s coming up with a deconstruction plan.

“We want to develop this tool with the aim of having an impact on policy change so new buildings that need to be constructed in the future must submit a deconstruction plan as part of the planning permission requirements.

“We are extremely happy the bid was successful – it was very strong.

“It will be the first time deconstruction and demolition will be considered at the design stage. It will also support the UK Government industry targets. In terms of innovation, it is one of the few academic projects bringing cutting-edge, emerging technology into construction research, with big data analytics, 4D visualisation and semantic ontology.

“It will have an impact on the industry – helping achieve greater competitive advantage in the sector to create low-waste buildings.”

Predictive analytics and big data will be used in order to forecast which materials could be reused or recycled when a particular building is ready to be pulled down. It is hoped that the new intelligence-based tool will lead to savings being made on landfill tax, as well as a reduction in landfill gasses and CO² emissions.

Prof Oyedele will be the principal investigator on the research project, working alongside four co-investigators: Dr Ismail Adelopo, Dr Vikas Kumar, Dr Ximing Ruan and Dr Bolanle Karimu.

Adapted from press release by Rebecca Bowden

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/29102015/construction-research-project-could-limit-landfill-873/