Sustainable Direction and Consortium Partners Take Leading Role in Deconstruction and Recovery Information Modelling (DRIM)

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Sustainable Direction Ltd (SDL) is a leading partner of a consortium along with the University of West England in Bristol, Coventry University and Waste Plan Solutions to deliver a project to revolutionise how materials from demolition are handled.  The objective of the project is to maximise resource recovery opportunities and revenue from capturing the value in waste via controlled / planned deconstruction via improved information management.

Our consortium is the beneficiary of an Innovate UK government grant in support of this project.

More than 50,000 buildings are demolished yearly in the UK leading to huge quantities of demolition waste that still currently ends in landfill.  Demolition waste comprises a significant proportion of valuable material that could be re-used in new construction or refurbishment or for other uses if recovered properly.  However, no information or management tools currently exist that can help in the identification of valuable building materials for reuse and recycling.  This project will develop an information-based tool called Deconstruction and Recovery Information Modelling (DRIM) that will enable users to identify reusable and recoverable building materials at the end-of-life of a building.  The DRIM Tool will enable:

(i) the production of a Deconstruction Plan;

(ii) the simulation of the deconstruction process;

(iii) production of deconstruction protocols during demolition of the building;

(iv) improvements in demolition waste collection, collation and sales schemes.

DRIM is aimed at both new and existing building stock and is in effect BIM for Deconstruction.  DRIM will use innovative and easy to use IT technologies to capture, predict and manage end-of-life properties and the value of their building materials.  The output of this project is the DRIM Tool.  This will be high profile, high value and will revolutionise the construction and waste management industries by reducing waste and improving profit.

You can find out more about this at the Innovate UK stand at this year's Ecobuild, or for further information or to discuss how you may be able to be involved please contact Becki Clark or John Henry Looney at SDL on 01452 382218.