Greenwich Millennium Village : Waste Audit and Minimisation Scheme

The Greenwich Millennium Village is one of the most exciting and innovative developments in Europe. Under construction since 1999, it will provide 1400 new homes on London’s Greenwich Peninsula. The development is designed to minimise environmental impacts and maximise the sustainability of the overall project.

GMV is a joint venture development by Countryside Properties plc and Taylor Woodrow Developments Ltd in association with English Partnerships. English Partnerships is the national regeneration agency, supporting high-quality sustainable growth across the country.

Greenwich Millennium Village has exceeded its target to reduce – by 50% – on-site construction waste for its Phases 1a and 2a. Cutting the number of skips by more than half has led to an estimated cost saving of £150,000.

The cost benefits have resulted from the project’s use of a waste management system to reduce waste, and to re-use and recycle unavoidable waste.

The lessons learnt in the waste reduction programme have resulted in the production of two newly-published guides on the reduction, re-use and recycling of construction waste. Jointly published by GMVL, the Hanson Environment Fund, Richard Hodkinson Consultancy and BRE, one of the guides is aimed at site managers and the other at project managers.

A key factor in the GMV waste reduction strategy was the use of SMARTAudit™. The system measures the underlying causes of waste, which enables subsequent actions to be monitored throughout the lifetime of the project.

Other essential actions for significantly reducing waste identified in the guides include:

establish a waste reduction strategy – early!
contractually oblige sub-contractors to co-operate in waste minimisation as part of their tender
communicate regularly with all sub-contractors and site operatives
partner with a waste management contractor to maximise recycling and reduce disposal costs
engage the whole supply chain – GMV partnered with British Gypsum who took back and recycled their own
scrap plasterboard
design to reduce waste – this needs to be considered from the outset, for example using prefabrication where components are manufactured with no waste in the process
segregate waste streams
compact waste and load skips careful to reduce waste volume
re-use and recycle waste where possible, in line with quality issues
ensure that there is suitable storage for all materials, accessible areas for waste skips and similar good housekeeping
plan for high volumes of waste in the final construction stages.

Further phases of the development are exploring other opportunities to reduce waste. These include requiring suppliers to provide returnable packaging, waste minimisation induction courses and the recycling of used formwork into landscaping mulch.

Copies of the guides to reducing construction waste can be downloaded from here. (PDF files)