European potential towards a circular built environment -The role of pre-demolition audit

Construction and Demolition (C&D) Waste represents about one third of all wastes produced in the European Union and it includes all types of waste arising from construction, excavation, building and demolition activities. The EU Waste Framework Directive (WFD – 2008/98/EC) imposes to all Member States to achieve a minimum C&D waste recovery target of 70 % by 2020. The EU recovery quota reported by Eurostat Database and referred to 2016 is 90 % while the average recycling rate is 75 %. In 2019, the European Commission published the “Report of the implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan”. The scope of the report is to adopt the Circular Economy and contrast the impacts on clime and ecosystem. The construction and demolition environment is an important sector in which circular economy can be extended. The aim of the thesis is to identify options to improve the reuse and recycling performance in Member States, describing drivers and barriers that may affect the transition to a circular built environment. The most important indicators are data collection, the legislation and framework and market conditions. The C&D waste management performance of each Member State is evaluated through the use of arbitrary scores assigned to each considered category so as to understand what aspects need to be improved in order to achieve a 100 % recycling rate in this sector. Increasing recycling and recovering simultaneously offers the possibility of using waste as a resource and reduces the need for the extraction of raw materials and the need for more energy. In this way, landfilling of C&D waste is hindered, illegal dumping contrasted and consequently the increase of energy consumption and the greenhouse gas emissions. The focus of the work is on the role of pre-demolition audit on the C&D waste management. The audit template considers a variety of aspects such as quantity of materials and elements, the case of contaminants and impurities, the location and building type, the recovery potential of wastes, the monetary value estimation of the reuse components, etc. The purpose of this audit is to facilitate and optimize the deconstruction, demolition and renovation process of buildings and infrastructures, and therefore maximize the recovery of materials and components. A proper removing and disposing of hazardous waste, health risks and environmental concerns decrease. The European countries are evaluated with arbitrary scores that consider the compulsory, application field and specificity of pre-demolition audit in order to understand the influence of this phase on the C&D waste recycling quota.