| The 2nd Stakeholder Panel Meeting is scheduled for 29 May 2012, hours 14:00 to 17:00 in IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Gothenburg, Sweden. Read more... |
| IRCOW Newsletter issue 01 :
Now available for download in 'Download' section
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The current EU waste legislation as well as overall approach to innovation sets up a number of challenges referring to waste management, material recovery, efficient use of resources etc. One of the issues that has recently become in the focus of policies of local, regional or national public authorities as well as interests of construction companies and technology providers is the beneficial use and recycling of construction and demolition waste (C&DW).
 | - Latest assessments show that about 380 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste (excluding materials from excavation activities) is generated in the EU per year i.e. 31% of the total waste generation in the EU.
- More than 50% of all materials extracted from earth are transformed into construction materials and products
- The reuse rate is estimated to be less than 10% of the recovered C&DW materials
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- Except for metals, the recovery rates for the other C&DW fractions in the EU remain well below the 2020 target. The rates of reuse of construction components and materials are also low. There is a need for developing efficient strategies to favour reuse of these materials as a preferable management option.
- The traditional recycling systems do not guarantee sufficient quality to use the derived recycled products in high grade applications. Thus, the challenge for obtaining upgraded C&D recycled materials lies in finding the right combination of inexpensive traditional separation techniques with further advanced automated sorting techniques easily adaptable to diverse generation scenarios.
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 | - According to rough estimates only 6% of concrete aggregates is currently used in high-grade concrete applications the rest being traditionally used in certain low grade applications.
- Construction sector accounts for almost 20% of the total plastic consumption in Western Europe. At the same time polymer production accounts for the largest proportion of resource use in plastic product manufacture. Using recycled plastics may help reduce the energy and CO2 embodied in the manufacturing processes of insulating materials.
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