When groundworks began on a new headquarters at Dorset Police's Winfrith site, the project team faced a common construction dilemma: what to do with all the excavated soil? Traditional practice would see this material loaded onto 210 lorry trips and transported 32km to the nearest landfill facility – generating significant costs and carbon emissions while wasting valuable resources.
In line with our Now or Never target to eliminate all avoidable waste from our projects we avoided the traditional ‘dig and dump’ approach. As the project was located on a greenfield site, a materials management plan was compiled, and all material movements were carried out under the CLAiRE Definition of Waste Code of Practice (DoWCoP).
Zero avoidable waste
The net result was a complete circular approach to excavated materials. We found a new purpose for 4,661 tonnes of material close to the site – a 100% diversion rate from landfill. Every cubic metre of the 2,119m³ of soil and material removed during groundworks was used to create two landscaped mounds on the nearby North field.
Financial and Environmental Impact
The financial benefits of avoiding sending excavated material to landfill were substantial. By avoiding traditional disposal routes, the project saved nearly £65,000 by eliminating costs like landfill gate fees, landfill tax and transport costs.
Each of the 210 round trips that would have been required to transport material to the nearest landfill facility would have generated substantial carbon emissions. By avoiding 13,440 kilometres of unnecessary lorry journeys, we prevented over four tonnes of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere.
Naomi Nicholson, Environmental Manager, said:
“This project demonstrates how construction can move beyond the traditional ‘take-make-dispose’ model to embrace circular economy principles.
"The key was planning this before we broke ground. Most projects see excavated soil as waste, but we saw it as a resource that just needed to find the right home.
“As a result, we’ve saved carbon emissions equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of several households, which demonstrates how construction projects can make a meaningful contribution to reduce waste and carbon emissions through thoughtful planning and resource management.”
Completed in 2024, the main Headquarters was designed to the BREEAM 'Very Good' sustainability standard, incorporating air source heat pumps and an array of solar photovoltaic panels to generate additional renewable energy. The materials management approach exemplified the project's commitment to environmental excellence from the ground up.
