Round the houses: Building more and wasting less should not be competing ambitions

Ireland urgently needs homes and increasing supply remains a national priority. The challenge, however, is not whether Ireland should build. It must. The challenge is whether future construction can become genuinely circular

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is Ireland’s largest waste stream. In 2023, approximately 9 million tonnes were generated nationally, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics. In recent years, construction waste has accounted for around half of all waste generated in Ireland. Picture: iStock

I’m writing this article to the soundtrack of construction. The grinding whine of angle grinders, the rumble of heavy machinery, the relentless beep… beep… beep of reversing vehicles that anyone living near a building site knows all too well. It has become background noise. Two years ago, I moved into a new-build home. Since then, I’ve watched our housing estate slowly take shape. Roads laid, roofs tiled, gardens seeded, walls painted. And just as one development neared completion, another began across the road. More machinery arrived. More deliveries. More skips. More dust. More noise. And somewhere between admiring the speed at which homes appeared and muttering under my breath at another 7 am wake-up call from reversing diggers, I started wondering: how much waste does all of this generate? Because every house built represents not only new materials arriving, but materials leaving too. Excavated soil. Broken concrete. Timber offcuts. Packaging. So much plastic packaging. Plasterboard. Damaged materials. Excess orders. Entire skips filled and removed before lunchtime.

Ireland urgently needs homes. As someone who spent years trying to get a foot on the property ladder, I would never dispute that. Few would. Housing shortages have dominated political debate for years, and increasing supply remains a national priority. Yet amid discussions around planning permissions, affordability and delivery targets, another question receives far less attention: what is the environmental cost of building at this pace? Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is Ireland’s largest waste stream. In 2023, approximately 9 million tonnes were generated nationally, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics. In recent years, construction waste has accounted for around half of all waste generated in Ireland.