4RinEU end of life strategy

One of the objectives of 4RinEU project is to define guidelines of good practices to manage the end-of-life of the building components and to advise the manufacturers in relation to the sustainability of deconstruction processes. Following this purpose specific deconstruction approaches to manage the end-of-life of the buildings components, increasing the recycling rate of the construction materials for the proposed technologies, have been defined.
As an outcome a report titled “D2.7: Guidelines and technology concepts for managing building end of life” is currently in progress.

The 4RinEU end-of life strategy defined within the project will be transferred into such guidelines to allow its application in any individual deep renovation project with 4RinEU packages. It includes:

1. a tool for quick identification of waste material from the existing buildings
2. technologies for recovery of materials
3. strategies to optimise the end-of-life of components in the building-to-be-renovated – and thus minimise 4RinEU embodied energy
4. practical application of end-of life strategy to 4RinEU prefab façade technology

The main approach followed during the preparation of deliverable D2.7 has been, firstly to perform a literature review in order to know the current situation in the EU regarding the assessment and management of the construction and demolition waste streams prior to demolition of buildings and infrastructures. In the process of defining the end-of-life principles of the 4RinEU guidelines applied to the refurbishment, demolition and recycling sector, several bibliographical sources as well as past and current research projects have been analysed.

The activities to be carried by ACCIONA and Gumpp & Maier during the next months will be the following:

• Definition of guidelines for quick identification and quantification of waste materials from the existing building components to be deconstructed, demolished or renovated
• Based on a life cycle oriented observation, definition of strategy for re-use and recycling or components and materials, including evaluation of costs and benefits as well as operative guidelines for (i) dismantling, detachment and transformation of construction waste in raw materials for further construction works or building components manufacturing (ii) regeneration of components for the same use in other buildings (iii) their disposal but minimizing the environmental impact
• Identification of best available technologies for recovery construction materials. Such technology solutions will make easier the managing of whole building or single component end-of-life, and the study provides information on how to manage the deep renovation, thinking on the building life cycle to reduce the actual construction waste also during the operative phase
• Evaluation re-use in the same building of existing systems after deep renovation (e.g, window from existing wall to prefab façade)