Recycled products

Extensive case studies [1] have shown that higher recycled content can be used in projects with no increase in cost of materials - and often with a cost saving where waste materials are reprocessed locally (e.g. for roads and other infrastructure). Moving to cost-neutral good practice can increase the mass of recovered material incorporated in a school or house tenfold [2]. This includes the use of manufactured products with above-average recycled content, reclaimed materials and aggregates reprocessed on site or from nearby sites. Many mainstream products already include recycled content at no extra cost with comparable technical specification. Specifying and using recycled products is a simple way of demonstrating a tangible contribution to sustainability and provides an opportunity to differentiate your business.

According to the Draft Strategy for Sustainable Construction the Government is "continuing intervention to help develop markets for recovered materials - through quality standards, and sector agreements with manufacturers, including

through the work of the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)". One option to help the Government achieve waste-neutral construction in its major construction projects by 2012 [3] would to set requirements for at the value of re-used or recycled materials employed on a construction project to be at least equal to the value of materials delivered to site that are wasted, while satisfying the criterion of no net adverse environmental impact from the adoption of good practice.
http://www.recyclingbydesign.org.uk/site/pdf/Specifiers_resources(2).pdf

BREMAP
An interactive searchable map providing access to companies who recycle, reuse, and sell reclaimed and recycleable products.
http://www.smartwaste.co.uk/bremap.jsp

[1] See www.wrap.org.uk/construction and www.aggregain.org.uk for further information.
[2] Case study analysis by Davis Langdon for WRAP, based on BRE data.
[3]For more details on this proposed target see Annex C3 to Waste Strategy for England 2007 (Box C3.4 on page 16) at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/strategy/strategy07/pdf/waste07-annex-c3.pdf