Reuse is the new recycling - government can and should create a new reuse agenda

Sustainable construction experts have published new research showing that the amount of building material being reclaimed has declined and that reclamation is in fact becoming more difficult in the UK. Ironically, over the past two decades, the Government's own policy has been hindering reuse, although they now claim that reclamation and reuse is higher on the agenda.

Pushing Reuse commissioned by BioRegional, and written by Thornton Kay of Salvo Llp, looks directly at this problem.

Jonathan Essex said, "Pushing Reuse clearly shows the benefits that reuse brings over recycling. For example, if we reclaimed 50 percent of reusable construction iron and steel the carbon savings would be equivalent to taking 29,000 cars off the road - and that's for just one material. Yes, reclamation is currently more labour intensive than recycling which makes it more expensive, but it creates green jobs and products that often have a higher value than recycled - for instance reclaimed bricks are worth much more than bricks recycled by being crushed to form recycled aggregate".

The full text of Pushing Reuse

Also see the Webinar on Pushing Reuse on 3 Feburary 2010