Who should organize, and when, the recycling operations?
Within the planning of construction activities, waste management planning plays a very important role, especially in the case of demolition.
Therefore, recycling being one of the options of waste management, it is clear that the one who plans a demolition and elaborates its projects is the one who should organize the recycling operation during such planning.
On this matter, for recycling being successful, the necessary measures on-site to sort and manage the wastes should be foreseen. Among them, the following stand out:
- Hazardous waste storage means:
For the storage of hazardous waste in demolition works, an area must be set up for their collection. Such areas should provide cover for hazardous waste, be separated from the sanitation network, avoid areas with strong air currents and avoid the hazardous waste being dragged or transported by water.
Otherwise, non-hazardous waste destined to be recycled could be contaminated, invalidating them for such recycling (or any other activity destined to reincorporate into the production cycle, as the circular economy pretends).
- Means of storing non-hazardous waste:
When the construction and demolition waste are separated, there must be a space destined for that purpose, which must allow placing large capacity containers or temporary stockpiles, until its removal by the correspondent waste manager.
The waste stored must remain correctly separated and be labelled according to its characteristics to facilitate subsequent recycling.
- Volume reduction means:
To facilitate the recycling volume reduction systems according to the type of material (stone, metal, etc.) may be required.
- Sorting machinery:
Manual sorting, screening, and aspiration.
- Internal transport on site: The transport of construction and demolition waste within the site is recommended by people with specific training on the existing safety standards and procedures regarding the hazardousness, handling, transport, and proper storage of waste.
Otherwise, not only such transportation could be dangerous for the workers, but wastes destined for recycling could be contaminated, thus invalidating them for such recycling.
In addition, it will have to be determined if the recycling will be done on-site or off-site. If it will be done on-site the means required for that purpose will have to be anticipated. For its part, if the recycling process is going through the recycling plant to which the waste will go and how and by whom it will be transported must also be anticipated.
Furthermore, in new constructions, the waste management of the generated wastes should be done following the same guidelines outlined above. But in this case, other actions can be taken to promote waste recycling.
If new constructions are designed considering their future demolition or dismantling, designing them for simple disassembly, will allow products to be simply and cheaply disassembled into constituent products at the end of use, ready for recycling.
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