Managing Waste across Multiple Construction Sites & Mitigate the Risks with a 3rd Party Supplier
Discover how outsourcing construction waste management can boost efficiency and improve your landfill diversion rates.
Waste management on widely dispersed construction sites presents specific challenges for construction managers.
Even if you set each site up with efficient waste management facilities, it will be impractical, if not impossible, for you to visit all of them on a sufficiently regular and frequent basis to ensure everything is working as it should.
To maximise the proportion of waste that’s reused and recycled, you should ideally prepare a Site Waste Management Plan and implement full on-site segregation, wherever there’s enough space. However, making sure that every worker on every site is fully aware of which types of waste to put where and is fully on board with the plan can be tricky.
Cross contamination of waste streams can mean that recyclable waste ends up going to landfill, incurring landfill tax and higher disposal charges. If the contaminant is hazardous and the waste still ends up going to landfill, you can be fined for improper treatment of hazardous waste. Remember that even paint tins and sealant tubes are classed as hazardous waste, even if they’re empty.
How do you make sure the waste management is going to plan across all construction sites under your control?
Consider outsourcing your waste management
Using a waste management company with national coverage can help to ease the pain – particularly when it comes to out-of-area contracting.
A provider with a large team of experts in construction site waste management will be able to offer a high level of support, including:
- on-site training in effective waste segmentation
- regular site visits to check how things are progressing
- practical advice on maximising reuse and recycling opportunities
- help drawing up and maintaining a site waste management plan for new projects
- a quick response service in case of emergencies
- assistance with meeting BREEAM standards.
Ideally they will also give you a holistic view of the waste management across all the sites under your control (including those ‘out-of area’), with bespoke reporting as well as online access to all the relevant documentation and data.
Choosing your waste management supplier with care
When looking for a waste management provider, obviously value for money will be a top consideration. That means not only offering good prices, but also helping each of your sites manage waste in the most effective way possible, with the most appropriate solutions.
However, care should be taken in your supplier appointment and the right due diligence checks should be made. A major household name in waste management was recently fined £110,000 and ordered to pay nearly £9,000 in legal costs after breaching the conditions of an environmental permit and failing to comply with an enforcement notice.
Your duty of care lasts until the safe and legal disposal of the waste your projects produce is completed – not just until you have passed your waste on to a licensed waste business. You need to satisfy yourself that the provider is properly carrying out its duty of care and handling your waste in compliance with all the relevant legislative requirements.
It could be your company that falls foul of the law if your waste management provider lets you down, so take the time to choose well.
Takeways:
- When you’re responsible for managing several sites across a wide geographical area, overseeing effective waste management on all of them personally is virtually impossible.
- Outsourcing your waste management to an established national provider can help you mitigate some of the risks.
- Services like on-site training, waste segregation support and regular site inspections will help you keep control while freeing up your time.
- Access to all the relevant waste management documentation and statistics will help you monitor performance.
- It’s crucial to select the right provider, to ensure that you will gain added value rather than extra risk.
Our latest eGuide helps you manage the broader risks of waste management – download your free copy now How to Control the Risks and the Costs of Waste Management
