Loading Map....
Fecha/Hora
Date(s) - 24/09/2020
Todo el día
Ubicación
Escuela Politécnica Superior. Campus Milanera
Categorías
The results of the European Project Life-Repolyuse, led by the University of Burgos, were presented worldwide in streaming at the technical conference “Ideas for Balancing the World”, aimed at professionals in the construction and architecture sectors.
The main objective of this project has been to develop a new construction material, a prefabricated gypsum tile for removable ceilings with polyurethane waste. It can be said that this objective has been fully achieved, as explained by Carlos Junco Petrement, member of the Building Engineering Research Group of the University of Burgos (Project coordinators).
68% of the polyurethane foam waste generated in Europe is disposed of in landfills or incinerated. Therefore, the aim of the project is to increase the sustainable reuse of this polyurethane foam waste, which is currently managed as inert waste or recovered using unsustainable techniques.
The implemented technology has allowed to manufacture a new material with similar characteristics to the current commercial standards, being improved in some facets.
The new LIFE-REPOLYUSE product could recover 75 tons of polyurethane foam waste in its first years of launch, which translates into a lower expenditure on raw materials; (25.71%) water savings and a reduction (31.6%) in gypsum. The Life Cycle Analysis of the new LIFE-REPOLYUSE product (presented by Sara Gutiérrez González, Technical Coordinator of the Project) concluded that the new material, compared to a standard product, has significant improvements in CO2 savings (19.32%) and lower energy expenditure in its manufacturing processes (16.6%). It could also avoid dumping in 1615 m3 of soil.
The technology has already been applied in three pilot buildings, two in Spain (Burgos and Álava) and one in the United Kingdom (Coventry).
Ernesto García Lallana, manager of Yesyforma, project partner, was also available to the attendees, assuring them that gypsum is “an excellent material because of its reversibility in the process, which favours the circular economy”.
The event was opened by Elena Junco Ruiz, Head of the Servicio de Residuos y Suelos Contaminados of the Dirección General de Calidad y Sostenibilidad Ambiental in the Junta de Castilla y León, who spoke in depth about the “Legal framework for the use of waste in construction materials” and highlighted the projects that the public administration is carrying out to promote recycling in construction: a Catalogue of Sustainable Public Works and a Decree that regulates the use of recycled aggregates in Castilla y León.
The guest speaker was Fernando Pardo Cobo, head of the Circular Economy at Placo Saint Globain Spain, who stated that “the gypsum sector has a circular nature, both because of the possibilities for recycling and because of industrial symbiosis”.
Gorka Arteta Hernández, from TECSA, another of the project’s partners, pointed to eco-management as a way of achieving more sustainable construction.
