Roofslates.com, a salvage business in Ashton-under-Lyne saves enough energy in one year to offset the building of eighty houses, according to a new survey by Salvo.
 
The study found that the reclamation company saved around 650 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2e) annually which is the equivalent energy needed to build 80 new houses made with reclaimed building materials for the walls, floors and roof. Alternatively, it would be enough to run two indoor civic swimming pools, build 8 new houses using new materials, manufacture 2 large wind turbines, or make 50 new electric cars.
 
Ricky Smith, who runs the reclaimed roofing business said, “Our customers these days include millionaire football stars as well as prestige clients such as the new Coronation Street TV set as well as the Houses of Parliament in London. We have probably been saving and selling around a million reclaimed roof slates a year for the past 25 years.” Over this time the company has saved more than 16,000t CO2e.
 
The annual energy saved by the other eighteen architectural salvage businesses in Greater Manchester is estimated at around 12,000tCO2e according to Salvo - enough to build another 1,500 carbon free homes every year. The UK disposes of about 160mt of demolition materials each year, of which Salvo estimates that less than 1m tonnes is reclaimed for reuse. But much more could be saved.
 
The construction of new buildings in the UK emits 48mtCO2e annually (48 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other green house gases) annually, of which Manchester’s contribution is around 2mtCO2e. The amount of reclaimed materials reused in an average new building is less than 1%. But in many modern buildings zero reclaimed materials are reused. If reclaimed materials were reused for floors, walls and roofs around 85% of a building could be made with reclaimed materials, and if every building was made this way, the carbon impact of construction would be significantly reduced. Manchester’s reclamation businesses are helping to ameliorate climate change.
 
Laurence Green, a long-established Trafford architectural salvage dealer said, “I have been selling these materials all my life, but until Salvo did its survey this year, I was not aware of the huge impact we have had on climate change. And that impact could be much greater if the world of construction started doing its share of conserving and reusing resources.”
 
Since Salvo was established it has promoted the reuse of materials from demolition with the ambition of reducing the amount of salvageable materials that end up in landfill. In 2019 we became the main UK partner in FCRBE, a three year EU project aiming to increase the reuse of reclaimed building materials by 50% in the professional construction sector. One part of this wide-ranging programme is a series of pilot operations to test methods to increase reuse, which Salvo plans to launch next year.
 
Salvo is calling for architects, designers, landscapers, demolition contractors and builders who would like to know more to contact Salvo. We plan to organise a workshop about increasing the reuse of reclaimed materials.