UNIVPM publishes two pioneering studies on CDW characterisation and valorisation
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New techniques and methodologies can be applied to classify, and thus valorise, construction and demolition waste, fostering sustainability and circularity - UNIVPM finds
During last Special Session at the International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment (IEEE MetroLivEnv) 2024, the project partner Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM) presented two studies on construction and demolition waste (CDW) carried out within RECONSTRUCT.
CDW, generated by construction and demolition of buildings and infrastructures, as well as by road maintenance, and comprising a wide range of materials, represents a third of the total wastes amount produced in Europe. Moreover, CDW disposal through landfilling and stacking can lead to several environmental issues. Yet, today, the European construction sector remains anything but circular.
One first step towards innovative recycling methodologies would be to efficiently sort wasting materials. The first paper, titled ‘How to quickly characterize construction and demolition wastes? Traditional and advanced portable solutions in comparison’, compares techniques working in different spectral ranges. These will be employed to assess the potential of innovative portable systems in speeding up CDW characterisation and quality control. The preliminary study aims at developing a database for CDW classification in the framework of RECONSTRUCT.
The second paper, titled ‘How to valorize construction and demolition wastes? Beyond the state of the art through vision systems and Artificial Intelligence tools’, then, proposes an innovative methodology based on sensors and AI-based algorithms. This technique provides potentially useful information for valorising these wastes and preventing them from being disposed, in a perspective of circularity and sustainability in the construction sector. Most common literature approaches, instead, are not applicable in real scenarios due to material heterogeneity and the heavy presence of dust.
You can find the papers here:
Ph Marek Studzinski from Unsplash