Waste management of deconstructed External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems with expanded polystyrene in the future

Abstract

External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS), mainly comprised of expanded polystyrene (EPS) as the insulating material, have been used to insulate facades of buildings for the past few decades. In Europe, waste from ETICS deconstruction is currently disposed of in waste incineration facilities or landfills. Although the current quantities of ETICS waste are small, disposal of the increasing quantities of waste is posing a problem in some countries. New recycling strategies, such as the physico-chemical recycling of EPS or reutilisation of material and energy of all ETICS components in cement plants, offer the possibility of a circular economy for ETICS waste in the future. However, this would require a waste management chain from the construction site to the utilisation plant with appropriate waste treatment. To assess this concept further, this study documented dismantling efforts at different construction sites and conducted large-scale trials for ETICS waste treatment. The results of this study will allow the selection of suitable processing units and will be applied in a model developed by the IWARU Institute to determine economically and ecologically advantageous waste management routes that can be used to handle ETICS waste in the future.

Selection Criteria for Building Materials and Components in Line with the Circular Economy Principles in the Built Environment—A Review of Current Trends

“…The significant amount of construction materials stocked in the built environment can inform key-stakeholders about the next steps towards urban mining and CE as an approach for better C&DW management -Recyclability reusability [164] To explore the end-of-life scenarios of external thermal insulation composite systems made with expanded polystyrene…”

Recycling Thermal Insulation Materials: A Case Study on More Circular Management of Expanded Polystyrene and Stonewool in Switzerland and Research Agenda

“…Raising awareness and evaluating potential practices and actions that could be done to promote the recyclability of IM (and a CE in the C&D sector in general) is essential for actors to recognize, change, or adopt new methods and ways of doing [52,53]. Second, the improvement of the recycling process and technology, as could be considered by the PolyStyreneLoop project [13,54], earned a highly effective and feasible score. As stated by the invited experts, there is too little material recycled and recovered compared to the total volume of waste produced, and technological improvements could offer disruptive solutions.…”

“…The sustainable management of IMs, however, faces significant challenges [12]. One example is expanded polystyrene (EPS), which until recently in Europe was manufactured with brominated flame retardants such as hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), which are considered toxic and persistent organic pollutants [13,14]. Safe recycling of EPS installed before 2015 requires the elimination of HBCD and other hazardous chemicals [15], which introduces technical complexity and added costs to the process.…”

“…[20] focused on the benchmarking and comparison of IMs' carbon footprint and circularity. However, it is acknowledged that assessing the drivers of, and barriers to, transitioning to a circular future for IM should be based on a systems perspective [20], considering the entire value chain [13]. Few scientific studies explicitly focused on the structure of the IM value chain and on the role and potential agency of the involved actors for driving a systemic CE transition.…”

Study on preparation of highly dispersed graphite composite expandable polystyrene foam by homogeneous dissolution‐suspension polymerization with waste polystyrene

“…The environmental hazards of wEPS are self‐evident, how to dispose and better utilize of these resources is important to improve environmental quality and maintain a low‐carbon life. [ 5–9 ]…”