GOOD PRACTICE IN SWITZERLAND

GOOD PRACTICE IN SWITZERLAND

Companies in the Swiss private sector too are actively developing innovative circular economy strategies to limit their impact on the environment throughout the construction industry’s value chain.

Incorporating ecodesign to reduce environmental impact and maintenance and deconstruction costs

It is during the ecodesign – or ecoconstruction – process that decisions are taken to limit the use of materials, use recycled materials, re-use or reclaim materials from other buildings and anticipate the end of the building’s useful life (planned deconstruction). The architectural firm in situ is one of Switzerland’s re-use pioneers. For its Halle 118 project in Winterthur, in situ began by identifying reusable elements and materials on deconstruction sites around the region, before drawing up the plans for the renovation work and raising the superstructure. Ecodesign is more than just an ideal. The construction of a NEST (Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies) module on the Empa site in Dübendorf33, built entirely of separated, reusable, recyclable and compostable materials, is proof of that. NEST is a student residence building that functions like a modular laboratory in which construction research and tests are carried out in real-life conditions.

Tracing materials to meet demand for recycled materials

To support re-use, companies such as Salza publish online in real time a list of re-usable elements that become available on demolition sites. This is also the approach adopted in 2017 by Madaster, a Dutch not-for-profit foundation which opened a Swiss office in Zurich in October 2018. Madaster does more than draw up an inventory of materials available for re-use; its aim is to provide each of the construction materials with an identity profile. The objective of this approach is to facilitate future renovation work by providing contractors with all the details of the materials of origin, reduce demolition waste and also promote re-use and reclamation by making the elements available online. The tool also provides an estimate of the circularity of the materials and their current market value.

Recycling construction site waste and reintegrating it into the circuit as construction materials

In support of this trend, businesses operating mainly in materials processing and construction have come up with innovative ways of using construction site waste. As eastern Switzerland’s leading building waste recycler since 1983, Eberhard AG collects deconstruction waste, produces recycled materials such as gravel and concrete, and constructs buildings with these materials. Other players have emerged too: Ronchi SA in Gland, Sotrag SA in Etoy and Kästli Bau AG in Rubigen to name but a few. These companies recover and re-use mineral waste from construction sites by sorting, crushing and sifting concrete waste and asphalt materials. Similarly, BOWA Recycling AG, in Susten owns one of the industry’s most modern soil washing installations. The company cleans, processes, recycles and reintroduces decontaminated construction materials. In Geneva, the innovative Terrabloc project, winner of the Geneva canton sustainable development grant (Bourse Cantonale du Développement Durable) in 2011 and the SUD sustainable start-up prize in 2019, gave rise to the company of the same name. Terrabloc recovers spoil from ground excavations and turns it into compressed earth blocks for use as an alternative to bricks and concrete in various applications. Other industry players are looking for ways to ‘circularise materials flows’. Neustark GmbH in Bern, for example, has come up with a way of storing CO2 by injecting it into demolition waste which is then reused in the form of aggregates and gravel to produce new concrete.

Wrecking balls and columns of trucks filing into landfill sites will soon be a thing of the past; planned deconstruction is fast becoming a key stage in the construction industry value chain, involving every player in the industry and providing a plentiful source of recyclable and re-usable materials.