Waste has been a thorn in the side of construction for many years, of all the industries it is still the biggest generator of landfill…back in 2008 12.5mt of construction waste was sent to landfill, or about 150t for every £1m spent on building. Put another way, for every ten new schools built you could build one extra from the waste of the ten just built (okay it is not quite this simple but you get the point).

Things are changing though, thanks to the efforts of WRAP who are pushing hard to halve the 2008 figures by the end of the year. Others are also trying to get us to re-think waste, the UPCYCLER’S DESIGN COMPETITION has recently been launched to generate ideas from the architectural community. Teams are invited to design a 280m2 building from a list of recovered construction waste. A great idea that will surely see some exciting design, one if which will get built early next year.

Watch this space to see what our competition entry will look like; Smith and Wallwork will be teaming up with an architect friend to create their vision of ‘waste not’.