A leading housing
association is aiming to become the first in the UK to build virtually plastic
free houses in its attempts to reduce the amount of plastic used during
construction.
Accord Housing
Association has announced that it will build 12 homes minimising the use of
plastic during the construction process. This means the organisation will use
alternatives when it comes to fitting the kitchens, bathrooms and windows, as
well as reducing the amount of plastic used in building materials.
Accord believes this
will be the first project of its kind in the UK, where a housing association is
looking to minimise the use of plastic in house-building.
The houses will be
built by Accord’s offsite manufacturing facility LoCaL Homes, which uses the
latest modern methods of construction to manufacture high quality, super energy
efficient houses.
Carl Taylor,
Assistant Director of New Businesses at Accord said: “We believe this type of
development hasn’t been done at scale before – there have been a few one off
attempts, but nobody has really looked at how we could produce mainstream
houses with all the amenities without using plastic.
“We particularly
want to remove the plastic from the kitchens and the bathrooms, because even
though a house can last for a hundred years or more, the average kitchen and
bathroom is changed every few years and we are keen to avoid generating plastic
waste. This trans-European project will enable us to work with our
European partners to identify plastic free building products. We haven’t yet
got a plastic free solution to the electrics for instance, but we will be
challenging people in the building products manufacturing industry to help us
find solutions.”
The project is part
of the CHARM partnership (Circular Housing Asset Renovation & Management)
funded by Interreg European Funding. It is part of a partnership which is made
up of representatives from four countries; Belgium, France, the Netherlands and
the UK. Each country has been given a different project to lead on, which aims
to promote a circular economy in the housing construction sector.
Alan Yates, Deputy
Chief Executive at Accord added: “Accord continues to lead the way in
innovation as we prepare to build these virtually plastic free homes. We are
delighted to be leading on this project in the UK and have started design work
which will finish in January 2020 and we will then start the development work
in 2020.
“Our closed timber
framed houses have allowed us to build on low carbon housing development and we
have developed technology to build low carbon houses – now it is about taking
that technology a step forward to reduce the use of materials that are not good
for the environment both during manufacture and construction and for years to
come. This project will change how we manufacture our homes for ever.
“We are increasingly
hearing about how single-use plastic waste is having an impact on the world’s
environment: from build-up in the oceans, to land fill and we hope that by
building houses with a new range of plastic-free components we can play our
part to minimise the impact on the environment.”
The building sector
is responsible for more than 60% of resource use in Europe, with more than
30-50% of material use taking place in the housing construction sector.
Plastic is usually
non-biodegradable and therefore can remain as waste in the environment for a
very long time – it may pose risks to people’s health, as well as the
environment, and it can be difficult to reuse and/or recycle. It is estimated
that ten per cent of all plastic ends up in the ocean.
