Building Materials From Recycled Materials
Environmental protection is getting much attention lately globally due to many reason and the maturity of this awareness. The temperature of the Earth is raising day by day, and the consequences have been getting obvious like the regular happening of earthquakes, storms, flood, tsunami, draught, and many more. Everyone in every sector must act quickly together to save our mother Earth. And particularly, construction industry also plays a big role in this matter.
Construction activity is not an ecological field-friendly activity. For example, the production of cement, stone, sand, steel, wood products and the list goes on, involved the demolition process, creating a large amount of greenhouse gases, destroying the beautiful nature and the atmosphere. So a question is posed to the experts? How can the construction industry still thrive and affect the environment the least? There have been a lot of options in place, but one of the most effective methods is to make use of recycled construction materials!
Positive Effect of Using Recycled Materials:
- By recycling materials and turning them to become useful materials, this can reduce the need for new materials effectively, lowering the need of demolition or non-environmental friendly production process
- Producing new materials required a structured transportation and production process which is costly. Recycling materials may help in reducing the need of transportation and production process, hence reducing the emission of unwanted gas and generation of waste during the transportation and production.
- Certain recycling process does not involve burning and does not produce waste. This is very helpful in protecting our lovey environment and atmosphere.
Sources That Can Generate Recycled Materials
Bricks
Brick is one of the most popular and widely used building materials. Healthy bricks if often used for auxiliary works, retaining walls or public works. Most of the time during the transportation process and application process, some bricks are damaged. By using the broken bricks in some construction works like as foundations, sidewalks, paths and many more, this activity will reduce wastage and more importantly reducing the need of new materials that is more harmful than using the broken bricks.
Masonry
Masonry is often crushed as aggregate masonry recycling. A special application of synthetic masonry recycling is to use it as an insulating concrete. A potential application for synthetic masonry recycling is to use it as a synthesis in traditional clay bricks.
Concrete
Concrete is used everywhere in construction as the base structure. Demolition of building produce a lot of concrete waste which can be used later as recycled materials to level the construction, making the road, and other construction activities as buffer. Other than that, recycled concrete can also be used as raw material for unburnt brick production.
Non-Ferrous Metal
Non-ferrous metal is also one of the most recycled waste in construction industry. It is estimated that in Malaysia more than 90% of scrap steel is recycled for reuse or reproduction later. Scrap steel is recycled almost completely and allows repeating recycle process. 100% steel can be recycled to avoid waste at construction sites.
Other Non-Ferrous Metal Scraps
Other non-ferrous metal scraps recovered during the demolition of building are aluminium, copper, lead and zinc. These materials can also be recycled for reproduction for reuse later in any construction activity.
Plastic
Plastic waste is best to be recycled if these scraps are collected separately and cleaned. However the recycling of plastic waste becomes difficult if the plastic waste is mixed with other pollutants.
Plastics can be recycled and used in products designed specifically for roofs and floors, PVC noise-resistant windows, cable ducts, control panels and many more
In Japan, the destruction of plastic waste is done by burning at high temperatures and turning them into ultrafine particles, called artificial soils.
Paper and Cardboard Paper
Paper and cardboard paper covers account for about 37% of demolition work waste. It is often recycled by recyclers as new paper products via refining process.
Timber Waste of Wood
Timber waste of wood from construction and demolition works is produced in large quantities worldwide. All excess wood from construction and demolition works can be easily and directly used for reuse in other construction projects after cleaning.
Above are the many commonly used building materials that can be recycle and reuse. However the world is still facing some obstacles in promoting the use of recycled materials due to:-
- Lacking of appropriate recycling facilities
- No suitable technology
- Lacking of awareness and understanding
