Total construction and demolition waste for England was estimated at 77.4 million tonnes in 2010.

Why is this important – Construction and demolition waste forms a significant contribution to  landfill.  Increasing the recycling and re-use of waste within the industry will help to conserve the dwindling landfill resources.

A new methodology for estimating total waste generation has been used to produce estimates for 2008-2010. This has been developed in partnership with other agencies and industry bodies. It uses only existing data sources. The estimates and more detail on the methodology are available below.

Total waste generation 2008-2010

Estimation methodology

Below are older estimates based on historic surveys.

• 53 million tonnes were recycled and a further 11 million tonnes were spread on exempt sites (usually land reclamation, agricultural improvement or infrastructure projects). The remaining 22 million tonnes were sent to landfill (including backfilling at quarries, and landfill engineering) as waste.
• Between 1999 and 2008 the proportion of construction and demolition waste recycled by crushers and screeners has increased from 35 per cent to 61 per cent. The proportion of construction and demolition waste sent to landfill has decreased from 37 per cent to 22 per cent and the amount of waste going to exempt sites has fallen from 27 per cent to 13 per cent.

Data download

The key facts publication contains a downloadable version of this page
No update planned
WRAP report: Construction, demolition and excavation waste arisings, use and disposal for England 2008
Government policy on waste and recycling

Downloads

17 May 2012

• CDE generation methodology (doc, 49 KB)
• CDE generation estimates (xls, 68 KB)