Reduced construction waste and increased material recycling

A collaboration between Sortera and Bonava resulted in a reduced amount of construction waste and an increased proportion of waste sent to material recycling.

Together, we have significantly reduced the amount of wood and plaster waste, the amount of combustible waste and completely eliminate waste sent to landfill,” says Ann-Sofie Ljung, sustainability specialist and environmental coordinator at Bonava. 

The construction industry is responsible for large amounts of emissions annually, and reducing the amount of construction waste and increasing the amount of material that goes to recycling can provide major environmental benefits. Sortera holds training courses with its customers to both inform them on the legal requirements and to review which materials belong in the different fractions, but also to provide knowledge about how the collected material is processed. The higher the degree of sorting on the construction site of materials sorted into clean fractions, the greater the proportion of waste that can be recycled. 

“The vast majority of our customers want to minimise waste and increase the proportion of recycled construction waste. It is not just about wanting to meet the requirements of the waste regulations, but many have their own high goals in their sustainability work. It’s great to see,” says Joakim Allmyr, who works with sales at Sortera. 

Bonava is a success story. When Sortera and Bonava began their collaboration, the statistics showed a high proportion of wood and plaster waste from Bonava’s construction sites. Joakim visited the construction sites and was able to establish that a large part of the wood waste came from the wooden packaging in which the finished house frames were delivered. The packaging then ended up as waste in the wooden container. The fact that 10 percent of the gypsum that was purchased was thrown away was also explained. This was because the gypsum was unloaded in a way that damaged the edges of the top and bottom gypsum boards in each bundle. They could therefore not be used and had to be discarded. 

Ann-Sofie Ljung works as a sustainability specialist and environmental coordinator at Bonava. She says that the gypsum is now unloaded in a gentler way, which has significantly reduced the amount of gypsum waste. As for the wooden packaging in which the house frames are delivered, it became part of supplier negotiations, and the packaging is now collected by the supplier Åtvidabergshus, who can reuse the packaging for new deliveries. 

“The best thing about Sortera is the close collaboration, we want to go in the same direction and the dialogue with Joakim works very well. Together we significantly reducd the amount of wood and plaster waste, the amount of combustible waste and eliminate waste sent to landfill. Joakim is also the one who runs all the start-up meetings and training regarding waste and sorting. We appreciated his presence in production and our collaboration very much,” says Ann-Sofie.