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Market Sector Approach: Building & Construction

Business Opportunities

39%
of survey respondents placed higher value on sustainable goods in home construction
6%
Using circular practices can provide a 6% overall decrease in acquisition and maintenance costs versus a standard building
$41B
The construction waste recycling market is projected to grow by 5.4% annually from 2022 ($28B) to 2030 ($41B)

Industry Priorities for Advancing Circularity: Building & Construction

Multilayer construction is commonly used in building and construction applications such as painted profiles and laminated deck boards. These components typically contain polymeric materials that are hard to separate and, if not separated well, compromise the performance of the recycled materials. Where practical recovery is possible (e.g., building foam plastic insulation), the products can still be contaminated with other construction materials/debris (e.g., adhesives, fasteners) that make sorting and recycling more difficult. Sensing technologies are needed to identify material composition and contaminants, allowing those components to be appropriately separated. Pilot programs can engage local and regional deconstruction companies with hands-on learning opportunities essential to educating workers on the importance and viability of circularity approaches.

Industrializing building construction such that buildings can be manufactured on- or off-site and rapidly assembled onsite will bring a factory-like assembly line to building and construction and better control waste. Building and construction companies should use:

  • Modularity in building design to facilitate reduction in materials, material reuse, and recycling by implementing design for assembly and disassembly, reducing landfill waste and mix-material demolition.
  • Building data collection by type to learn and estimate the typical amount of materials used.

Remanufacturing, refurbishment, and reuse can provide beneficial alternatives to recycling and should be explored for building & construction applications. In addition, research on the design of bio-based materials for use in buildings and construction applications has the potential to improve circularity of the sector.

Plastics found in building and construction applications often have chloride in their chemical structure, which is more difficult and costly to recycle. While mechanical recycling can often be done through partnership with the construction and demolition recyclers, research and development of advanced chemical technologies that are less energy-intensive and more robust is needed to bridge the technical gap and improve economically and environmentally feasible large-scale use.
  • Educate designers and contractors on plastics products to inform better decision making regarding performance, cost, longevity, and recyclability.
  • Build new academic programming to teach design for disassembly and recycling techniques within existing engineering curricula.
  • Train building subcontractors on durable plastic recycling practices.
  • Incentivize building owners to specify that their renovation contractors will collect materials at EOL, which will help place value on EOL materials being collected for recycling or reuse and incentivize designers and contractors to include those extra costs in their project bids.

Standards should accommodate more variability in composition for materials that perform the same when tested. For example, bale specs should be reviewed and updated in partnership with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. Mass balance accounting methods should also be considered as part of such standards.

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