Millennium Village exceeds all waste targets

Greenwich Millennium Village has exceeded its target to reduce on-site construction waste for its Phases 1a and 2a by 50%.

Cutting the number of skips by more than half has also led to a direct 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 also resulted in the production of two newly-published guides on the reduction, re-use and recycling of construction waste.

A key factor in the GMV waste reduction strategy was the use of a Building Research Establishment-developed waste benchmarking system known as SMARTWaste.

The system measures the underlying causes of waste, which enables subsequent actions to be monitored throughout the lifetime of the project.

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.