Construction firms committed to cutting the amount of waste they send to landfill could now find it easier to seek out a new home for unwanted materials following the launch of a new eBay style website offering them the chance to put waste or excess materials up for auction.

The recently launched ConstructionResale.co.uk site provides a sales platform for construction firms and materials suppliers, allowing them to buy and sell waste and excess materials as well as temporary on site materials such as storage containers or props, which can often be discarded at the end of projects.

Will Goode, managing director of ConstructionResale.co.uk, said that firms with unwanted or used materials could advertise the products on the site for free. The company then takes three per cent of the value of any sales at the end of each month with the remainder being paid to the seller.

"The construction industry is heading from waste culture to a resource culture," said Goode. "A lot of what goes into skips could be reused and part of the reason it isn't is because there is no communication between different companies, making it difficult to provide a buyer. This sales platform should help change that and could have a major impact on levels of reuse."

Goode added that like eBay the company could not give guarantees over the quality of any material sold through the site, but insisted it would do its best to police the new market. "If the company has bought material in good faith that is not as advertised, they can contact us and we have the power to stop the seller using the website if need be," he explained.