Regulations for the management of construction site waste

While the questions of sustainable development, circular economy and environmental responsibility are emerging as major and future challenges for the construction sector of South Carolina, the subject of waste management is one of the levers which the sector must seize when it comes to committing our national economy to its low-carbon trajectory.

If a majority of professionals are aware of the importance of this subject, it should be remembered that the implementation of an effective waste management policy makes it possible both to reduce the environmental impact of their activity but also to reduce removal and processing costs. For their part, public authorities encourage professionals to structure their waste management policy, in particular through the regulations in force.

Management of construction site waste: a regulatory context favoring the circular economy

If the regulations already prohibited non-environmentally friendly practices such as burying or incineration of waste on construction sites, they are now part of an ambitious approach aiming for high recovery rates and seeking to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill.

In accordance with the low carbon strategy and with the desire to orient its economy towards circular, low carbon and sustainable, the state of South Carolina notably reinforced its commitment in 2020 , giving rise to several new obligations in this area.

Waste management before work

It is now mandatory to include certain mentions related to waste activity in all quotes for construction, renovation and demolition of buildings. Any contractor making a quote must therefore include, in order to raise the client’s awareness of the issue of waste generated, the following elements:

• An estimate of the total quantity of waste generated by the construction company during the construction site
• The methods of management and removal of this waste and in particular the sorting effort carried out on the site and the nature of the waste for which separate collection is planned
• The collection locations provided for waste disposal (professional recycling centers, collection points, etc.). The latter must be identified by means of an address and a company name
• An estimate of associated costs

This measure is accompanied by the establishment of a waste deposit slip, signed jointly by the company responsible for generating the waste and by the agent who received it. Submitted subsequently to the project owner, it must notably contain:

• The type/nature of waste
• The location of the construction site
• Legal information from the project owner
• The quantity/volume of different waste
• Legal information about the collection facility
• The date of filing

What do we mean by demolition or significant renovation

• Buildings with a cumulative floor area greater than 1,000 m2 (set of buildings on the scale of the operation)
• Or having hosted one or more dangerous substances

The diagnosis must be carried out before submitting applications for planning permission (construction, demolition, development) or, failing that, before accepting quotes or awarding contracts.

Waste management during construction

7-stream sorting: if since 2014 the obligation to sort at source covered five types of waste (5-stream sorting), there are now 7 streams that must be taken into account on construction sites. Indeed, there are now two additional flows:

• Mineral fraction waste (concrete, bricks, tiles, ceramics or stones)
• Plaster waste (gypsum boards, cellular partitions, plaster slabs or tiles)

These two new flows are therefore added to the first 5 initial flows, namely:

• Papers and cardboard
• Metals
• Plastics
• The glasses
• Woods

The auxiliary supports your clients towards their valorization objectives

If the implementation of rules of good practice can help to comply with these obligations, new technologies will, in the coming years and now, have a preponderant role in the digitalization of construction sites and in achieving ambitious objectives in terms of reducing the environmental footprint of construction.

In order to support construction players in this approach and lead them towards high recovery objectives, the auxiliary has developed in collaboration with a start-up specializing in the optimization of professional waste management, an exclusive offer reserved for its members. In partnership with Dumpster Rental Concord Team, they therefore offer a connected diagnosis of the waste sorting and removal activity intended for construction professionals.

While effective management of construction site waste allows for an undeniable reduction in costs, this solution allows in particular:

• To have a continuous diagnosis of the waste management activity
• To detect sorting errors and anomalies in bins in real time
• To analyze the filling of dumpsters and predict the skip collection time in order to rationalize the cost of removal

The interest in setting up such a service for characterizing and managing construction site waste is based both on an ever-increasing commitment to the valorization and reduction of the environmental footprint of the construction industry of South Carolina as well as on a promise of reduced activity costs thanks to data collected and then extrapolated by artificial intelligence developed by our partner.