ABSTRACT
The building industry is one of the biggest consumers of materials. In the UK the industry is responsible for the extraction of 260 million tonnes of minerals, equivalent to 90 per cent of minerals extracted annually for non-energy purposes (Addis and Talbot 2001). Measures to reduce this substantial use of virgin materials and the associated environmental impacts need to be extensively implemented. One way forward is to design buildings to be capable of being dismantled and enable the reuse or recycling of their component materials at the end of the building’s life, thereby making secondary materials available and reducing the need for virgin materials. This not only reduces the impacts of resourcing and manufacture, but also the impacts associated with landfill sites and incineration. However, for this approach to be effective, there has to be a balance between the reused and recycled materials available to the construction industry and the demand for them. Unless there is sufficient market demand for recycled and reclaimed materials, they will simply end up, at best, unused in expensive storage and, at worst, landfilled.
