Sustainability

NUMIX project has been selected as one of the representative innovative ways in which European businesses and organisations are addressing the challenge of combining environmental sustainability and economic growth. In fact one of the main objectives of the project is effectively contributing to the reduction of the waste plastics destined to incineration or landfill by the production of alternative materials to be used in the construction industry.

Up to now, recycling waste plastics coming from municipal solid waste is one of the most attractive opportunities in the field of materials recycling. In particular, the possibility to obtain new construction materials made of recycled waste plastics is a remarkably interesting challenge. In fact, waste material coming from the sorting phase has surely no chance to be reutilized otherwise because of its heterogeneity and very poor mechanical properties. Moreover, data recorded in 2008 among all European Member States indicate that 12.1 million tonnes of plastic waste was still wasted on landfills.

The laws that in many countries oblige to mechanically recycle different kinds of products (e.g. packing, containers, etc…) obviously produce an increase in the availability of secondary raw material on the market; the use of waste plastics for the manufacturing of lightweight construction materials involves a series of advantages, such as:
  • reduction in the consumption of raw materials
  • decrease of the pressure of heterogeneous plastic from city solid wastes (MSW) on landfills
  • reduction of the environmental impact on landfills and of that resulting from quarrying activities.

NUMIX project is thus oriented to promote an industrial process based on using the scrap resulting from the sorting of plastic waste, from both solid urban and industrial, craftmade and/or commercial waste, to produce two alternative products for the construction sector. The first product is represented by Expanded Granules to be used as aggregate for lightened structural and non-structural concrete, substituting the expanded clay. The second product is constituted by Densified Flakes to be used as aggregate for mortar and as raw material for the first product. Finally, the project intends to develop a sizeable European market for these novel products.

The chance to obtain new construction materials by recycling waste plastics will contribute to provide an innovative eco-sustainable solution. This is of particular relevance in some Central and Eastern European countries, where the plastic waste resulting from sorting is not recovered for incineration and is destined to landfill.

On the other hand, concrete is the second most consumed substance on earth after water. It is an essential, virtually irreplaceable product used in the built environment: almost everything we have around is made of concrete, or in part contains it. As a construction material, concrete contributes positively towards the energy efficiency of buildings, and has excellent and proven fire resistance properties which deliver protection of life, property and the environment in the case of fire. In relation to adaptation to climate change, concrete also has much to offer in terms of flood prevention and resilience to adverse weather conditions. Production of concrete in industrialised countries annually amounts to 1.5-3 tons per capita, and the world cement production has steadily grown since the early 1950s.