Reuse and Recycling on Site

Many building products come wrapped in plastic and so like with all the other waste building materials we have accumulated on site I sorted and stored the plastic. My piles of scrap timber have been useful and some of it burnt in friends wood fires. Some of the metal pile, being meters and meters of metal strapping, have been taken down to the metal recyclers and other pieces like guttering offcuts sit there waiting for a use. The plastic has been very useful covering the door frames, windows and ceiling up while rendering. Bags from insulation have been useful for windows and ceiling. The long thin strips of plastic from the guttering was perfect for wrapping door frames. Plastic that wrapped other sections of roofing just fitted some of the windows. Even bubble wrap from some tiles bought mail order was used to protect the ceiling.

Windows and doors covered in reused insulation bags and guttering plastic

Insulation bags and bubble wrap protect the ceiling

Wrapped door frames

Front door covered in plastic

Small plastic bags from the guttering fittings were used to hold the measured out amounts of oxide for the render. We even piled up all the old binder bags, not sure what to do with them, but not ready to throw out something that may have a use. When I had a trailer load of sand for the render, I had to empty it out of the trailer. Rather than have to shovel it out of the trailer then measure out the amounts required for each render mix. I found that the old binder and render bags could comfortably fit the measured out sand and so to save double handling shovelled the sand straight out of the trailer and measured into the old binder bags ready for use.

Gutter fittings bags reused to hold coloured oxide

Binder bags reused to hold sand