From Waste to Resource will explore the opportunities and challenges in the creative reuse of construction clay spoil.
About the From Waste to Resource conference
This conference will present the research findings of British Ceramic Biennial (BCB) and Clay Researcher Claire Baily’s 19-month research initiative. Building upon these ideas, the conference will pull together contributions from a diverse range of disciplines, including:
- Architecture
- Construction
- Ceramics
- Art
- Community initiatives
- Environmental studies.
The event will include presentations, panel discussions and keynote speeches covering topics such as policy, practice, and innovation. It will conclude with a late-night opening of the biennial.
BCB clay research
This conference forms a key part of BCB and Claire Baily’s research initiative, focusing on the creative reuse of construction clay spoil. The project explores the opportunities and challenges of reusing clay sourced from UK construction spoil across a range of scales – from individual artists and local communities to large-scale industrial applications.
Each year, UK construction activities extract thousands of tons of clay. Despite its inherently circular nature much of it is overlooked and discarded. Given the urgency of the climate emergency, the construction industry must adopt circular economy practices, rethinking the lifecycles of core materials.
The benefits of circular approaches are significant, reducing the environmental, ecological and economic costs of waste disposal. However, the obstacles are considerable including legislative barriers, economic constraints, technical challenges and societal attitudes.
The research explores potential applications of construction clay spoil such as bricks, tiles and rammed earth using existing case studies to demonstrate that despite challenges, viable alternatives to the linear model of ‘dig, build, discard’ do exist. These alternatives require vision, creativity, problem-solving, innovation, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing at both local and national levels.
Acknowledging that our current systems are fragmented, we believe that the key to creating lasting change lies in bridging the gaps between disconnected sectors, systems and scales. By encouraging more integrated exchanges of knowledge, education, and materials, we can work towards a truly sustainable and interconnected future.
