Thornton and Brian in conversation, live at 16:00GMT(UTC) on Tuesday 14th December 2023
Introduction with this month’s hosts:
Thornton Kay of Salvo:
SalvoWEB.com,
futuREuse.co.uk
Trulyreclaimed.org
And
Brian Murphy of Green Building Encyclopaedia:
Green Building Encyclopaedia
Green Building Learning
Green Building Calculator
Salvo received a reply to our letter (13nov23) to Michael Gove, the minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities asking the government to amend the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to contain a supportive new statement about its circular economy ambitions by giving support to the reclamation and reuse of reclaimed building material. The reply (11dec23) thanked us for our email regarding Government support for the reclamation sector and reclaimed building materials, and went on, ‘I hope it will be helpful to set out the Government’s policy in this area’ and quoted from two further documents - the National Design Guide (NDG) and the National Model Design Code (NMDC) - neither of which appear to contain support for, or even mention, reclamation and reuse of reclaimed building material. The legal basis of the design guidance notes which exclude explicit support for reclamation and reuse is on page 4 of the NPPF, which directs readers to the government's National Planning Policy for Waste which says 'The Framework should be read in conjunction with the Government’s planning policy for traveller sites, and its planning policy for waste' which in turn directs readers to Article 3 of the revised Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) which can be found in EU Directive 2008/98/EC which states in para 13 that reuse means any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived. The cross referencing through many documents does not in our view show clear and transparent support for the circular economy with respect to the reclamation and reuse of reclaimed building material. How will this be viewed by local authorities (LAs) which write their own codes? Is there a legal recourse for salvage dealers to require their LAs to have clauses recommending reclamation and reuse? Thornton will draft and circulate a letter for Salvo members to use to send to their LA to ensure the reclamation and reuse of reclaimed building material is written into their local design guidance notes.
Brian recalled the general enthusiasm of ‘architects declare’ of two years ago and whether LAs have publicly consulted about their policies in this area. Thornton pointed out that the London area has developed planning policies and guidance requiring consideration for reclamation and reuse when demolition takes place. Adrian Dobinson in Bath was mentioned about his nascent ofplan.org (http://ofplan.org) about which we hope to have a chat in an episode next year.
Brian mentioned that AECB has produced LA templates for carbon, are they still available? Possible example policies and case studies. The AECB website does not seem to have anything useful on reclamation and reuse. Thornton made some more points about the need for people to take reuse more seriously.
PFAS, forever chemicals, POPs, novel entities - Salvo wrote to the Environment Agency about carpet tiles of which around half are believed to contain stain-resisting persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which contain chemicals such as per and poly fluoralkyls (PFAs). We asked should they be landfilled and contaminate water, or reused above ground in a building until a device is made which can identify and decide the disposal pathway. No answer was forthcoming. In 1994 SalvoNEWS reported that a scientists from ISCOWA based in Utrecht provisionally found that reusable possibly toxic material with either a currently known toxic risk or a possible future one is better reused above ground in, for example, a building than buried in landfill where leachate will contaminate groundwater, or dispersed into the atmosphere via incineration possibly as a chemically-worse toxin such as dioxin. In future spectrographic analysis by iPhone will be possible to identify construction toxins and methods of safe and permanent disposal. Until that time comes reuse, possibly encapsulated, is the safest option.
Brian had experience of another POP, phthalate, in PVC caused faults in, for example, plastic skirtings in hospitals. The use of phthalates were due to be resolved by the 2006 EU Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations, now the 2021 UK REACH regulations. TK: There is now the EU SCIP database, started in 2021, which currently lists chemicals used in over 12m products. And Brian mentioned a benign substitution portal, Subsport, which offers alternative less hazardous substances: Clustercollaboration.eu Asbestos was also briefly discussed - here is the link to a recent SalvoNEWS story on unlicensed, non-notifiable and notifiable work involving asbestos https://www.salvoweb.com/salvonews/38484-some-asbestos-removal-may-be-nonlicensed-hse-notifiable-or-not
Links to other topics discussed:
UK gov minerals policy
Thermal mass in buildings
Carbon sequestration and storage in concrete: A state-of-the-art review
An Introduction to Lime Mortar as a Sustainable Building Material
SalvoNEWS article: Some asbestos removal may be nonlicensed, HSE notifiable or not
RB Asbestos Consultants: Asbestos Encapsulation: The Ultimate Guide
Construction News: HMRC chasing £16.5m from Squibb Group over alleged tax fraud
Bellastock s’installe à Marseille!
Brian Murphy GBE - Sustainable specification and writing training
Thanks to Primitivism for the music
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