About 90 million tonnes of waste are produced each year by construction and demolition projects in the UK. Although recycling reduces pressure on landfill, it still requires significant inputs of energy. Using reused materials has the benefit of retaining the embodied energy of the material - the energy required to abstract, process, manufacture and deliver it.
Reclaimed materials |
|
Recycled materials |
For example, reusing a tonne of bricks in their existing form saves 878kg of carbon emissions but crushing used bricks to make aggregate saves only 15kg of carbon emissions.