Construction and Demolition Waste

Construction and demolition waste is defined within Directive 2018/851 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste (the Waste Framework Directive) as "waste generated by construction and demolition activities".

Under the Waste Framework Directive there is a target to for the Recovery of non-hazardous C&D waste of 70% by 2020, which the UK is currently meeting even taking into consideration the high level of uncertainty around the absolute tonnage figures. The figures for England and the UK are extracted in the table below from the DEFRA Digest [1].

C&D Waste Recovery Rates 2010-16
UK England
Generation Recovery Recovery Rate Generation Recovery Recovery Rate
M tonnes M tonnes %ge M tonnes M tonnes %ge
2010 59.2 53.1 89.7% 53.6 49.4 92.2%
2011 60.2 55.0 91.4% 54.9 50.8 92.5%
2012 55.8 50.8 91.2% 50.5 46.4 92.0%
2013 57.1 52.0 91.2% 51.7 47.6 92.0%
2014 61.5 56.3 91.5% 55.9 51.7 92.4%
2015 63.8 58.1 91.1% 57.7 53.3 92.3%
2016 66.2 60.2 91.0% 59.6 55.0 92.1%

References

  1. UK Statistics on Waste 2019 updating some of the 2018 Digest with 2017 data