'Recycling wilderness' ahead, NFDC cautions

The continued use of engineered materials is moving the UK towards a 'recycling wilderness' rather than increasing the sustainability of our building stock, the National Federation of Demolition Contractors (NFDC) has claimed.

Its members currently recycle between 90% and 94% of all demolition materials, but Howard Button, national secretary at the NFDC, has warned that this may not be possible in years to come.

"I have serious concerns that, despite building products and materials being marketed as sustainable, we are not looking at their second life," he told CJ. "There is not enough thought being put into the materials we use beyond their immediate sustainability."

Button claims that in particular the increased use of particleboard will pose problems for demolition contractors. "Composites have the potential to be a big problem," he said. "Engineered wood panels like MDF, chipboard and plasterboard contain resin which, at the moment, is not recyclable. Is it fair for a supposed sustainable construction market to use these materials and expect the demolition industry to deal with them in 20 years time?"

He believes that an end-of-life building directive should be introduced to make sure developers document everything that goes into a building. This would help demolition contractors to identify all products used in a given building and ascertain whether they are recyclable.

Currently, the majority of manufactured board is sent to landfill, with a small amount of reclaimed chipboard used to create new product.

Alister Kerr, director general at the Wood Panel Industries Federation, conceded that while recycling manufactured board is not currently viable, it does have the potential to be converted into energy. "Engineered panels are a commodity product so, while technically they can be broken down into chips and fibres, it is a slow process requiring large amounts of energy, making it economically unsustainable," he said.

"But in future there will be alternatives. For example, a power plant under construction in Tyneside will have the capability to turn waste products such as engineered board into energy. This will not only make good use of reclaimed board, but create energy considered carbon neutral."