The Builderscrap.com team are back from the Christmas break. This next post states that respondents were quite likely to already be buying fresh food that had been grown when it is in season in the country where it was produced – 60% had done this and were maintaining the behaviour while a further 3% had tried this but had relapsed. Very few respondents (6%) had rejected the idea of buying locally in season produce but one in five (21%) were at the pre-contemplation stage indicating that they “hadn’t thought about doing this” or “hadn’t heard” about it.

The omnibus survey included some additional questions about seasonal food. Firstly, omnibus respondents were presented with a fuller definition of what seasonal food was before being asked whether they ever purchased it:
‘Seasonal food is defined as food that is grown outdoors or produced during the natural growing / production period for the country or region where it is produced. It need not necessarily be consumed locally. As a result less energy is likely to have been used in its production’

Providing this fuller definition led to responses that were broadly similar to the response already presented in Table 22. Just over half (55%) said they were already buying seasonal food and maintaining this as a behaviour, 9% said they were contemplating it, 6% had thought about it but had rejected the idea, and 19% were at the pre-contemplation stage (having either never thought about it or having never heard of it). A comparison of responses to these two questions is provided in Table 23.

All respondents in the omnibus survey were also asked what factors might encourage them to buy more seasonal produce. More than one third (37%) of respondents said that they would buy more “if the price was similar to the food they usually bought / if it was cheaper”. A smaller proportion (14%) said that they would if shops made it clearer which food was seasonal, 9% if packaging on food told them it was seasonal and 6% if shops only sold seasonal produce. Just over one in ten (11%) said that nothing would make them buy more seasonal food because they wanted to buy the food they desired whenever they wanted.

A message to the Builders, Contractors and everyone who’s been reading, supporting and interacting with us this year… Merry Christmas.

Have a great New Year!

Wirral South MP Ben Chapman has been to visit local environmental business, BuilderScrap.  He met with Directors Les Owens and John Carroll.

BuilderScrap is a free to use website aimed at the construction industry.  The website allows users to upload details of surplus, unused construction materials to the website where other users can view and enquire about materials for their projects.

The website is free for anyone to use, including builders, schools, charities and home owners looking to carry out their own construction projects.

By encouraging reuse over disposal, BuilderScrap allows companies and individuals to lower their carbon footprint, reduce the waste being sent to landfill and lower their waste disposal costs.

Through a new partnership with Salford University and The Centre for Construction Excellence, BuilderScrap will be launching a web-based carbon calculator in the new year, where members can measure the reductions in their carbon emissions through use of the website.

Managing Director, Les Owens said ‘We are proud of our local heritage, our company was set up in 1972 by my Father, and we are actively involved in our local community.  We are members of the Wirral Investment network, of which Mr Chapman is an Honorary President.  We are really honoured that Mr Chapman took the time out to visit us and learn more about how we are working with the local community and helping the construction industry lessen its impact on the environment’.

Ben Chapman added: “BuilderScrap is an innovative solution to a continuing problem; that of unnecessary waste being sent to landfill. The functionality of the website is very impressive; the company is taking advantage of the Web 2.0 revolution and operates in an effective, practical and sustainable way.

“Furthermore, it could not be more relevant to our current climate. Aside from the obvious environmental benefits of the service, there are also the economic and social benefits to low income families, third sector organisations and businesses, who are able to aquire building materials at a low cost or for free”.

Readers… down your Builders surplus supply.  We’re in a festive mood here at BuilderScrap.com. The turkeys have been purchased and Grandma’s itching to help out with the Christmas Pudding. This post looks at a number of behaviours relating to food purchasing and consumption at home as well as growing your own fruit and vegetables and composting in the garden. Table 22 presents the findings for four food-related behaviours using the stages of change response scale employed throughout this report.

In total almost nine out of ten (88%) respondents reported that they were already wasting less food, with three-quarters (75%) saying they were “already doing this and intend to keep it up” and 13% “already doing this though I’d like to do it more”. This shows an increase since 2007, when less than two-thirds (63%) reported they were “already doing this and intend to keep it up”.

Nearly half (46%) of respondents with a garden reported that they were already composting household or garden waste (the equivalent of 43% of all respondents), with one fifth (20%) having rejected this behaviour and a further one fifth (20%) having either not heard of this or not thought about it. Those who were already composting household food and garden waste included people who had a compost heap or composter at home as well as those who were using composting collections provided by their council. The majority (62%) of respondents indicated that their council provided a collection for garden waste and a third (34%) for food waste. One half (51%) of all respondents who had a garden said they normally used a council collection for garden waste (a slight decrease from 55% in 2007), and one quarter (25%) of all respondents said they normally used a council collection for food waste (an increase from 20% in 2007).

One third (33%) of respondents with gardens reported that they were already growing their own fruit and vegetables (the equivalent of 30% of all respondents), with a slightly lower proportion (29%) reporting that they had rejected this behaviour. One in ten (10%) were contemplating it whilst nearly one fifth (17%) had either not heard of this or not thought about it.

Of the five measures covered in Table 22 respondents were least likely to be already buying fish from sustainable sources and intending to keep this up (only 26% were at the maintenance stage). A large group of respondents (43%) were classified at the pre-contemplation stage – indicating that they had either never heard about this or that they had not really given it any thought. A relatively high proportion (17%) of respondents were left unclassified on this measure, which included just over one in ten (12%) answering not applicable (implying that not all consumers buy fish).

The public were asked whether they agreed with the statement “people have a duty to recycle“. The vast majority (88%) agreed representing an increase of ten percentage points since 2007 (see Figure 11). The level of disagreement with this statement was very low – just 5% of respondents disagreed in 2009, representing a small decrease from 7% in the 2007 Defra survey.

At our Builders Exchange we love to to look back at old surveys to compare and contrast results.

Reuse of items and use of own bags when shopping were also measured in the 2007 survey. There have been distinct increases in the numbers reporting that they were doing these behaviours (Figure 10). Since 2007, the proportion of respondents saying that they always or very often reused items has more than doubled, from 18% to 45%. Those saying that they never reused items had decreased by nine percentage points to 13%.

Figure 10 shows that those who always or very often take their own bags when they shop had nearly trebled since 2007 from 25% to 70%. In 2007 there was a larger proportion of respondents who would sometimes or occasionally take their own bags (22%), but the survey findings suggest that this has become more frequent for the majority of shoppers. In 2007, a third of respondents said they never took their own
bags – this has now reduced to just 10% of respondents.

Double, trebled great work!

Here at BuilderScrap.com we’re not all about Builders Supplies. This post looks at our recycling habits, so ditch those plastic bags!

As well as asking about people’s current behaviours and their willingness to act, the survey also covered how often people undertook these behaviours (ranging between always and never) as shown in Figure 9. As discussed in the previously, the vast majority (91%) of respondents said they were recycling items rather than throwing them away. Just over half (56%) of all respondents said they “always” did this, 30% said they did this “very” or “quite often”, and 7% said they only did this sometimes.

Most respondents (84%) reported that they were already taking their own shopping bags. When respondents were asked how often they took their own shopping bags when shopping, over half of respondents said they always did this (56%), while a further 20% said they did this very or quite often.
Three quarters (76%) of respondents said they reused items like plastic bottles, tubs, jars, envelopes or paper, although the frequency of reuse varied considerably. Just over a quarter (28%) of respondents said they always reused these items, around a third (33%) said they reused them very or quite often but a quarter (24%) said they only did this sometimes or occasionally. Similar proportions of respondents reported that they never took their own shopping bag when shopping (10%) and never reused items like plastic bottles, tubs, jars, envelopes or paper (13%).

Note

In the UK, there have been two voluntary carrier bag objectives: (i) WRAP introduced a target to reduce the environmental impact of carrier bags by 25% by the end of 2008, based on a 2006 baseline. (ii) In December 2008, the Government and leading supermarkets agreed to a 50% reduction in the number of carrier bags being given out to customers by May 2009.

At BuilderScrap.com we’re not just interested in building supplies. We love finding out about the eco-behaviours of the general public. In this survey respondents were asked to consider their current behaviour and willingness to act in relation to five recycling, composting and reusing behaviours (using the stages of change response scale). A breakdown of responses from the 2009 survey is provided in Table 20, dividing respondents into the five summary groups associated with the stages of change scale.

When asked whether they “recycle more items rather than throwing them away‟ a large majority (91%) of respondents fell into the maintenance category (including all those currently acting and those who may not be doing it as much or as often as they would like). This represents a significant increase in this behaviour since the 2007 Defra survey, in which 70% of respondents reported that they were already recycling more items than throwing them away. Table 21 summarises these results.

Respondents were asked about taking their own shopping bags when they went shopping and also about the frequency of doing this. The majority (84%) of respondents reported that they were already taking their own shopping bags and intending to continue (the maintenance stage), with only small numbers of respondents at each of the other stages. It is relevant to note that there has been a reduction in the availability of single use carrier bags over the last two years, informed by voluntary agreements between the Government and leading retailers

Most respondents were also reusing items like plastic bottles and glass jars, with three quarters of respondents reporting they were maintaining this behaviour. One in ten (11%), however, were still at the pre-contemplation stage and had not considered doing this before, and a similar proportion (8%) had rejected the behaviour.

Slightly fewer than half (43%) of respondents said they were already composting household food or garden waste and intended to keep this up (the maintenance stage) while a fifth were at the pre-contemplation stage. A further fifth had thought about composting household food or garden waste but had rejected the idea. Those who were already composting household food and garden waste included people who had a compost heap or composter at home as well as those who were using composting collections provided by their council.

Of the five items covered, respondents were least likely to be checking whether an item could be recycled before purchasing. For this behaviour, nearly half (49%) of respondents fell into the pre-contemplation stage – having never thought about doing this or never heard of this. Nearly a third (29%) of respondents said they were already doing this (the maintenance stage), while 14% had rejected the idea.

This post from BuilderScrap.com concerns not just building materials but also the recycling of common waste.  Consistent with 2007, 83% of respondents said there was a bottle or recycling bank in their area. However, reported usage of these facilities had increased slightly compared with 2007 (see Table 18). Around three-quarters (71%) of respondents said they made use of recycling banks, an increase of six percentage points since 2007.

Respondents who said that they used their local recycling facilities were then asked what type of items they took there (see Table 19 for a full breakdown). People were most likely to take glass items to bottle banks or recycling centres – with nearly three quarters (70%) of respondents reporting taking these to be recycled. This is slightly less than the 76% who reported that they used their doorstep recycling collection for glass. Just under half (47%) took clothes to be recycled. Around a third of respondents reported that they took paper items, cardboard, shoes or tins and cans to their local recycling banks. It is likely that this is influenced by levels of doorstep collection for certain items, for example door-step collections for glass and clothes recycling are less widespread than paper.

In 2007, similar proportions of respondents were taking each of these items to recycling facilities. Where there had been changes in recycling, the largest increases were for tins, cans and foil, and paper items where the proportion of respondents who said they took these to be recycled had increased by eight percentage points.

Paul Jones, our Apprentice Customer Service Assistant, has been working at BuilderScrap for three months now and so I have asked him to write a blog post about his time here. 

Over the past 3 months I have been working at BuilderScrap and already I have been away to Birmingham for an exhibition, been to several meetings and even experienced an Edmund McGee presentation first hand(!). I think the biggest challenge I have faced since joining the company is attending the exhibition and having to strike up a conversation about our company to strangers.  I feel by the end of the first day I began grasping at the technique and became much less worried about interacting with the public. The people within the company made me feel very relaxed and comfortable so I was never dreading coming to work as they were all very welcoming. I think thanks to their support I have been able to take on most jobs with minimum fuss, but if I ever needed help whilst doing the database or arranging event dates or pretty much anything there is always someone there ready to help out. I have really enjoyed my time here and hope to be working here for a while to come.

Paul is studying for a Level 3 NVQ in Customer Services and has just been successful in the nominations for the Wirral Business Apprentices all Star Awards, which we will be attending in the New Year.