Sustainable Strip Out and Demolition
A strip out produces more waste per square metre than almost anything else in construction. Ceilings, partitions, carpet, joinery, workstations and services all come out of a building in a matter of days, and a lot of it has been in place for less than fifteen years.
That is the honest starting point. Our job is to make sure as little of it as possible ends up buried.
Sorting on site, not at the tip
Sorting happens where the material is, not at a transfer station where it has already been mixed together. Metal in one stream, timber in another, plasterboard, concrete and clean fill separated again.
It costs a bit of time on site and saves a lot at the weighbridge, which is why we do it even on jobs where nobody has asked us to. Mixed loads are the enemy. Once the streams are combined in a bin, the whole load gets classified by its worst component and goes to the most expensive destination.
Fitout material that can be used again
A lot of what comes out of a tenancy is not rubbish. Workstations, task chairs, kitchen appliances, glazed partitions and joinery are often only a few years old and perfectly serviceable. Where the client is willing and the programme allows, we set that material aside rather than skip it. Some goes back to the tenant, some to a charity or a school, some to a second hand dealer.
It has to be agreed before the job starts. Once the crew is on a demolition rate and the bins are booked, everything goes in the bin because there is nowhere else for it to go. Ask us at quote stage.
Our own trucks, fewer movements
We own our tippers, hook trucks and skips. That is a commercial point and it is an environmental one as well.
It means we size the truck to the load and the site rather than sending whatever is available, we combine movements between jobs in the same area, and we are not running a half empty truck across Sydney because a broker had nothing else free. It also means the bin gets swapped when it is full, so material is not sitting exposed on site in the weather.
Where we want to get better
Dust, noise and water are the three things that affect the people around a strip out. We use on tool extraction and water suppression for cutting and breaking, we keep loud work inside the agreed hours, and we protect drains before anything starts rather than cleaning up afterwards.
We are not going to claim the demolition industry is green. It is not. What we can do is take the waste seriously, keep the neighbours informed, and be straight about what goes to landfill and why. You get weighbridge dockets on everything, so you can check rather than take our word for it.
What we want next is more material diverted, more clients agreeing to salvage before the job starts instead of after, and better data so that what we report is measured rather than estimated. We would rather say that plainly than publish a recycling percentage we cannot stand behind.
Perfect Stripout & Demolition acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.