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Environment & Sustainability
This year’s World Environment Day theme Beat Plastic Pollution is highly relevant to the infrastructure and construction sectors. Plastics are a part of so many components of infrastructure projects, including:
- Packaging waste
- Barriers and signage
- Protective sheeting and liners
- Pipes, cable and joint covers
- Site consumables (low-grade plastics).
Unlike materials like metals and concrete which have established re-use streams, construction plastics typically end up in a landfill and if not disposed properly, eventually as micro plastics in soils and water ways.
The construction sector accounts for almost 19% of global plastic production, but plastics are often overlooked in construction waste plans due to its low mass and lack of appreciation of environmental impacts.
So what can we do differently?
Design for circularity
It’s easier to adopt tried and tested approaches but it’s increasingly urgent to push the envelope further and pilot new methods. This includes questioning whether certain plastic based components are essential and if so, consider end-of life recovery. How easy is it to dismantle and recover? Further, it's important to investigate if less material can be used and if there is a case for re-use and recycled plastics which present reduced embodied carbon and less plastic production overall.
Rethink temporary works
The management of infrastructure assets often requires temporary works, and at short notice. Impacts to the environment are often overlooked in favour of fixing the problem. This approach needs to be re-framed and re-considered from a procurement basis. An overlooked example are traffic barriers, which in many cases become degraded and are sent to landfill. If not disposed properly, these and other similar components can contribute to microplastics pollution. Specifying recycled content barriers for temporary works cycles the plastic used and limits plastics going to landfill or the environment.
Engage suppliers
Suppliers play an out-sized role in the adoption of new materials and practices that favour less or more recycled plastics. Designers have a major role to play here, we sit at the interface of implementation and collaboration to identify viable alternatives is key to industry-wide adoption. Whether we continue relying on virgin, high-impact plastics or shift toward recycled-content and alternative materials often comes down to what's available and what’s specified.
Measure and monitor
Plastic is often overlooked in material audits during construction or considered as part of the general waste stream despite its long term environmental risks. Tracking the quantities and types of plastic waste emerging from projects can help identify high priority areas for quick wins.
To drive meaningful change, we need to embed material flow assessments into project life cycles and include plastics, systemically tracking the types, quantities, diversion rates and end-of life recovery pathways.
This year’s theme challenges every sector to act and the infrastructure sector has a big role to play in reducing unnecessary plastic by informing smarter design choices, influencing procurement and prioritising recycled content when it comes to plastics.