DEFRA and the Scottish Executive are both supporting the scheme. Debut Services hosted the Brize Norton event where the coding scheme will be used on an £11 million project to upgrade living quarters for service personnel.
The construction industry already reuses much of its waste. Of the 90.9 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste produced in 2003 only nine million tonnes were sent to landfill. However, the materials are often mixed together in a skip, which reduces the quality of raw material for recycling and hence its value. If the items are segregated earlier then they do not lose quality and, subsequently, value.
Seven posters have been designed, each with a designated colour, symbol and one word explanation of the contents to be displayed with skips. To encourage organisations to use the system, the posters are free to download from the Waste Aware Construction website www.wasteawareconstruction.com.