RECYCLING

Biography

Biography: Lauredan Le Guen

Abstract

Among the many environmental interactions with human activities, the construction and building materials (bricks, plaster, asphalt or cement concrete, clay materials and slurry) are recognized as a no negligible source of pressure on the environment. It is defined as the product of the linear economy, that is, an economy that digs resources out of the ground (e.g. rock materials), transforms them into products and buries in the ground, that is, in landfill sites, at the end of the life cycle of the product. Such an approach is wasteful, for both money and resources. An alternative, the circular economy (“cradle to cradle”), consists in remanufactured and/or reused materials such as today’s goods become tomorrow’s goods. The French energy transition law claims that by 2020, 60% of the building and construction materials will come from recycling also called construction and demolition waste (CDW). The process evolution of the construction waste management can be considered as one of the large challenge for the civil engineering community leading to several scientific issues to overcome. Currently, the plant used for the CDW treatment manufactures products for a “low cost” valorization because of the standards and the customers’ consideration and the economical concurrency. The adaptation and the modification of these plants are necessary in order to target the manufacturing of product to a high value valorization. Based on some recent studies, the perspectives of this new strategy seems to be promising.