Buildings at the end of their useful life and used building materials are a valuable source of raw materials that can be fully used for other buildings. However, their use here is still at a much lower level than abroad. The Catalog of products and materials containing secondary raw materials for use in the construction industry, prepared by the University Center for Energy Efficient Buildings of CTU, helps to change this.
Materials originating mainly from demolitions represent roughly 60% of all waste production in the Czech Republic. The most common are earth, metals, stone, concrete, asphalt and bricks. However, there is still a strong distrust of the quality of recycled materials in our country, which is why in the domestic construction industry, apart from metals and asphalt, which are recycled, they are usually only used as inferior backfill for engineering networks. Katalog výrobků a materiálů s obsahem druhotných surovin pro použití ve stavebnictví, prepared by the Czech Technical University UCEEB for the Czech Agency for Standardization, helps to change this.
The catalog provides information for designers and architects, showing them in a clear way how and under what conditions it is possible to use products containing secondary raw materials in the construction industry. It shows representatives of the state administration examples of good practice so that they can take the requirements for selective demolition and the use of recycled products into account more in state contracts, and it helps processors of construction waste and construction companies with establishing procedures and determining requirements for new products using a recycled component.
You can read an interview with Tereza Pavlů and Jan Pešta from ČVUT UCEEB about the issue of recycling products and materials containing secondary raw materials at TZB-info.cz.