The impact of waste
The construction industry is growing by leaps and bounds with each passing year, and with it comes new challenges to be addressed. One of the main problems faced by the business is the waste generation in buildings, renovations, and demolitions. Currently, construction and demolition waste represent approximately 30% of the total waste generated in the European Union, a figure that amounts to 500 million tons per year. Most of this waste, which is called CDW, is usually deposited uncontrollably in large landfills due to poor management and planning.
Rethinking the system
Rethinking the construction system is a priority for the sector, which is gradually being incorporated into its future plans. Among this waste we can find reusable materials, with a great potential to be used again for construction activity, but due to poor recycling, they end up becoming unusable waste. It is necessary to opt for new measures to control and process waste to achieve better performance, abandoning a practice that causes unnecessary expenses and generates a very negative ecological impact.
Next Steps
One of the solutions suggested some years ago to improve this situation and which has been decreed by the European Green Pact is to implement a circular economy that allows efficient management of the resources used, keeping them and recirculating them in the economic system as long as possible in order to minimize the generation of waste. This system encourages the regeneration of natural materials and encourages restitution. Implementing the principles of the circular economy in the construction industry would imply an adequate treatment of rejected materials, taking advantage of their reuse potential, reducing the negative impact on the environment, and making more rational use of them.
PICVISA helps companies to be more competitive by reducing their costs and improving their productivity. They contribute with their services to rethink the waste system of the construction sector, prioritizing the collection actions by separating waste to enhance its recovery or final transformation into other products.
How dothey achieve this?
PICVISA uses a combination of NIR and RGB technology to improve the waste recovery system in the sector. They have customized robots that can be trained according to the customer’s needs, or they also offer the use of optical separation. These technologies help achieve greater efficiency in the sorting of recoverable materials from the construction sector. To this end, PICVISA implements selective demolition and sorting of different waste fractions into at least the following materials: wood, inert, metals, glass, plastic and gypsum.
