Less plastic in the skip: cutting landfill waste and dust on strip-out with Surface Pro

Every strip-out starts the same way: rolls of polythene, protection boards and tape go down over everything that has to survive the job. A few weeks later the lot is pulled up — dusty, torn and stuck together with tape — and goes in the skip. It was bought to be thrown away.

Surface Pro is a different way to do that job. It is a liquid, sprayed over the surfaces you need to protect, that dries to a flexible film and peels off at the end. Here is how it cuts plastic waste and keeps dust down on ordinary refurbishment and demolition work, as well as on asbestos jobs.

The waste problem with temporary protection

Temporary protection is one of the few things on site that is designed to become waste. Polythene sheeting, corrugated plastic boards and tape all do one job and then leave the site in a skip. On a large internal strip-out it adds up to a lot of single-use plastic, and most of it is too dirty to recycle by the time it comes up.

It also doesn't work very well. Sheets shift, laps open up, tape lets go at the edges, and the dust that gets underneath is the dust that does the damage. Then the whole lot has to be lifted carefully so you don't tip everything it caught straight back onto the floor.

How a sprayed film changes that

Surface Pro goes on as a pink liquid with an airless sprayer, so you can see exactly where you have covered. It dries to a clear, tough skin that is stuck to the surface rather than lying on top of it:

• No laps, no gaps. One continuous film right up to the edge, so dust can't get underneath.
• Nothing to fix down. No tape, no boards, no trips over lifted sheet.
• It holds what lands on it. Dust and fine debris stick to the film instead of being kicked back into the air every time someone walks through.
• It peels off in sheets. At the end of the job it rolls up with the dirt inside it — one bundle out of the building instead of a floor to sweep after the sheeting has gone.

Less plastic in the skip

The biggest saving is simply what you no longer buy and bin. Surface Pro is made from a biodegradable natural polymer, not oil-based plastic sheet, and it replaces the polythene, boards and tape on the areas you spray. The tubs are recyclable too: let any leftover product dry, peel it out, and the tub can be recycled or reused.

That fits the order the waste hierarchy puts things in — prevent waste first, then reuse and recycle, with disposal last. Not creating the plastic in the first place is better than any skip-sorting arrangement.

One rule doesn't change: on asbestos work, any film that has been in contact with asbestos is asbestos waste. It is bagged and disposed of under your asbestos plan like any other contaminated material. The plastic saving still applies to the sheeting you didn't need to put down.

Dust control on normal demolition and strip-out

Surface Pro is sold as an asbestos encapsulation product, but you don't need asbestos on site for it to earn its place. On internal soft strip and demolition it is a straightforward dust-control layer:

• spray the floors and any retained surfaces before the noisy work starts;
• let it take the dust, grit and plaster that would otherwise settle and get tracked through the building;
• peel it up when the area is ready for the next trade, leaving a clean surface underneath.

It works alongside your normal dust controls — on-tool extraction, water suppression and the right RPE — not instead of them. What it removes is the dust that would otherwise sit on the floor and be stirred up again every day.

Where it fits, and where it doesn't

• Internal use only. Surface Pro is not UV stable, so keep it out of direct sunlight and off external surfaces.
• Up to four months. It is a temporary film — plan to peel it within that window.
• Above 5°C. Both the surface and the air need to stay above 5°C while it goes on and dries.
• Patch test first. Try a small area and peel it after 3–7 days to make sure it releases cleanly from that surface.
• It is not a waterproofing or tanking membrane.

Putting it down

Spray at a minimum of 0.5 kg/m² — about 500 microns — so a 20 kg tub covers up to 40 m². Where the floor will take steady foot traffic, go heavier, up to 1 kg/m². Remove the filters from the airless sprayer first, mask anything you don't want coated, and finish to a clean edge so the film comes up in one piece. It dries in 3–6 hours at 15°C. Full details are in the data sheet and install guide on the Surface Pro product page.

Talk to us about your job

Surface Pro is quoted per project, based on area, substrate and access. Send us an enquiry or call the technical team on 01223 208174.

For permanent encapsulation rather than a temporary film, see Soteria, and for when sealing asbestos makes more sense than removing it, read Asbestos Encapsulation: When Sealing Beats Removal.