Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

The final report is now available which you can download here. 

Extract from executive summary

It is perhaps obvious to state that the environmental costs of a flood event are huge, with this evident on every street affected in the immediate aftermath. At a household level the most significant impacts are the amount of waste created through disposal of flood damaged items and the strip out of sodden building materials, the increased fuel used to dry out properties, and the materials and energy needed to reinstate properties and make them homes again. We have made an attempt in this report to approximately quantify this impact, finding that:

• Waste to landfill from flood affected homes is roughly equivalent to total annual residual household waste from a typical household in one year
• Energy used for drying processes may add around 3 tonnes, or one third, to the average home’s annual carbon emissions.
• Materials used in refurbishment, coupled with the replacement of items like appliances, add significantly to embodied impacts. A replacement set of kitchen appliances adds around one tonne in embodied carbon.

Transport of materials and labour adds further to these impacts.
We found evidence that whilst some of these impacts may be unavoidable, there is significant scope to reduce impacts through better processes in carrying out restoration work.

• In strip out, materials and items are often be removed unnecessarily, due to a poorly developed understanding of the existing building context or the potential for retention and restoration. For example, solid wood floors are often stripped, but with careful cleaning and drying it may be possible to retain them. Walls with flood resilient renders and plasters are stripped, ‘just to be sure’. Solid wood furniture is disposed of because of a lack understanding or resources for refurbishment.
• There is a limited understanding of the potential for unintended consequences of drying processes, that may result in further avoidable damage to existing materials, and therefore requiring a greater degree of strip out.
• The extent of refurbishment required is greatly affected by what has gone before, but there is often additional waste created where poor quality work has to be redone, or by not considering and integrating resilience measures at an appropriate time. This in addition to the high levels of waste prevalent in the construction industry in the disposal of unused or damaged building materials.