Recycling, downcycling e upcycling in edilizia

European Union is strongly committed since years in promoting sustainable development, by both regulatory actions and research support. Among others, the recycling of waste coming from urban and industrial sectors is a main policy target, especially on the path towards the circular economy, also intensely EU supported. This gives recycling even greater importance than in the past, as it could provide the flow of resources that feeds the economic cycles with minimal environmental impact. As result, focus is moving on the effectiveness of the recycling process and the quality of its outputs, as indicated by the appearance of new terms and concepts. While the term “recycling” designates a “simple” process of converting waste into reusable material; the recent and successful notion of “upcycle” implies the reuse of discarded
objects or material “in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original”. On the contrary, recycled products with a lower value than the original ones configure a downcycling. Since it accounts for about 30% of all waste generated in EU, construction and demolition waste (CDW) is identified as a priority sector within which recycling emerges as crucial issue, as well as the challenge to push up the quality of its outputs. After providing some definitions of the notions supporting such new approach, this document identifies the most relevant specific CDW streams involved in it, outlining a tentative mapping both of possible upcycling and CDW whose quality cannot or does not seem convenient to be enhanced.
The first results of the survey suggest that further investigations are needed to better identify the many variables that influence the path, such as the material geometrical shapes, residual performances, assembling and joining techniques, dismantling methods, not to mention environmental impacts related to handling processes and criteria to apply to rate the value of the recycled products.