I’ve got to tell you something that seems to be landing with very little fanfare, but that could quietly blow a hole in budgets up and down the demolition and construction supply chain.

It currently costs £4.05 per tonne to dump inert waste – rock and concrete – at a UK landfill. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small tariff compared to the £126 charged for the disposal of general waste. And besides, those in the field of demolition send materials to landfill only as a last resort. They would much prefer to recycle, reuse or – better still – resell those materials at a profit rather than shipping them out as a cost.

Now, though, there’s a very real possibility that the government could wipe away that lower rate entirely. The government is currently analysing the feedback from a formal consultation that proposes a tax escalator so that by 2030, that £4 goes the same route as standard waste: a full £126 per tonne.

I’ll save you doing the maths. That’s a 3,000 percent tax hike in effect.

This article continues on Demolition Insider. Please use the link below to access this article FOR FREE.

It is Zero Waste Week. It’s OK if you didn’t know that. I didn’t either, until someone told me. Perhaps those behind the campaign decided not to waste their money promoting it.

When demolition and construction people hear the words “Zero Waste Week”, I am sure most of them will picture overflowing skips, mountains of rubble, and diesel-belching machines chewing through concrete. They’ll imagine campaigns to recycle aggregates, to reuse timber, to cut down on single-use plastics in site canteens. And that’s all fine. Noble, even.

But let’s be honest. The demolition industry is already a world leader in recycling. And besides, the biggest waste in demolition and construction isn’t something you can sort into a recycling bin. It isn’t measured in tonnes or litres. It’s invisible, corrosive, and it multiplies faster than paperwork in a health and safety audit.

Because while we wring our hands about the waste of bricks, steel, and fuel, we quietly ignore the daily avalanche of wasted time, wasted money, wasted people, wasted energy, and wasted goodwill. The kind of waste no one photographs for sustainability reports, but everyone on site knows all too well.

This article continues on Demolition Insider. Please use the link below to access this article FOR FREE.

About this time last year, I wrote an article entitled “the law of unintended consequences” in which I spoke about how one seemingly positive action can result in a negative outcome. I revisited that subject in May this year with an article called “construction’s lack of consequences”. The same notion was also the inspiration for a piece I write just a few weeks ago called “Right Hand vs Left Hand”.

Each time I have written about this, my words have been greeted with widespread, almost universal recognition. “Yes,” people say. “Obviously if you raise the Landfill Tax, some people will just fly-tip their waste illegally.” Or, “if you demand industry veterans prove they’re capable of doing the job they have been doing for the past 30 years, some of them are going to tell you where you can poke your NVQs”.

Sadly, as is so often the case, factors that seem patently obvious to those on the ground are considerably less obvious to those in loftier positions within the UK demolition and construction industry.

And few organisations are quite as lofty and as far removed from the muck and bullets of the demolition and construction trenches as the Construction Industry Training Board (or the CITB as it is known, affectionately or otherwise).

This article continues on Demolition Insider. Please use the link below to access this article FOR FREE.

“This is the worst it will ever be”. It’s an expression used widely to describe nascent technology that has huge future potential and years or even decades of development and improvement ahead.

I used the expression myself just yesterday to convey my feelings on Artificial Intelligence as it stands today. The technology behind AI is already incredible. But this is the worst it will ever be. With each passing day, each passing year and each passing iteration, AI will get smarter, more intuitive, and more useful. As that song said: “Things can only get better.” The best is yet to come.

From the TV you watch in the evening to the car you drive to and from work. Regardless of the make, model or year of manufacture. They are the worst that they will ever be.

That is how progress works. We might get teary-eyed about excavators of yesteryear and vintage dozers from days gone by. But we know in our heart of hearts that (a) we have never had it so good; and (b) future generations will have it even better.
This is the worst it will ever be applies nicely to all things technological or engineering-based. But does it also apply to entire industries? Can we look at the demolition and construction industry of today and truly believe that things will only get better; that each new step along the path of progress will bring about only improvements?

This article continues on Demolition Insider. Please use the link below to access this article FOR FREE.