CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION WASTE RECYCLING IN EUROPE: LONG-TERM TRENDS AND CHALLENGES AHEAD

摘要

Urban areas are critical for resource efficiency and circular construction. With half of all extracted materials and energy, and one third of the total waste generated, the construction sector is one of the greatest stake in the European Union's (EU) efforts to make its economy circular. The European Commission has undertaken specific initiatives to promote a more efficient use of resources in the construction sector through a better management of construction and demolition waste. The Circular Economy Package has impulsed measures requiring construction sector stakeholders to mainstream the re-use, recycling and recovery of construction and demolition waste. In the short and medium term, the management of raw materials and waste in construction should be improved by intensifying the necessary actions for saving non-renewable natural resources and for recovering waste not merely in volume but in value as well. Achieving the 70% recovery target of the Waste Framework Directive is compulsory, but beyond this objective, the construction value chain should better close the loop by: 1. Banning landfilling of all recyclable construction and demolition waste, 2. Setting construction and demolition waste processing facilities in or close to urban areas, 3. Enforcing mandatory pre-demolition and renovation work waste audits, 4. Implementing selective demolition and sorting on-site as much as possible, 5. Ensuring traceability all along the recovery process from waste removal until re-use or recycling, 6. Promoting the fulfilment of construction products standards and quality insurance for secondary materials and products, 7. Managing occupational health, safety and environment all along the recovery operations with specific attention to hazardous waste separate treatment, 8. Setting the principle of non-discrimination with regard to the performance assessment and effective acceptance of secondary materials by public project sponsors and technical prescribers and thus opening public and private construction markets to recycled products. The long-term challenge is to anticipate the consumption of materials and waste generation by putting into practice new approaches for buildings and infrastructures design in order to: 1. Optimise the consumption and the performance of construction products and to enable lower natural resource consumption, 2. Enable adaptability and reversibility of buildings and infrastructures to respond better to users' needs along the lifecycle, 3. Make buildings dismountable when time comes for renovation, transformation or demolition in order to recover as much as possible the construction components and their economic value. The construction sector should define its own principles and tools according to these new approaches and thus integrate fully the objectives of circular economy.