Construction and waste are intricately linked. The buildings that form part of our lives and the way we behave when we are in them  create huge amounts of carbon, whilst the build process itself generates a very large proportion of our economy’s waste material. Thankfully, Wales has pioneered collaborative procurement methods that go a long way to minimising waste and maximising the use of recycled materials and avoiding sending material to landfill. However, the current approach we have adopted to  manage the relationship with waste  is being challenged.

The theory is that we must embrace recycling, reuse, minimisation and ultimately the prevention of waste – but to do this effectively means reassessing the life cycle of the building materials our industry uses. That means giving real consideration  to the production process of the bricks, blocks, mortar, windows  and everything else taken for granted on a site – all of which plays a part in the makeup of our industry and the Welsh built environment. As in every relationship, if we start to examine every facet we quickly discover there are consequences. Phil Purnell is Professor of Materials and Structures at the University of Leeds and he has been investigating. Click here for further details.