Barriers in the reuse of waste and low level contaminated soil – Lessons learnt in Norway

The European Commission's Circular Economy Action Plan includes a legislative proposal on waste and provides long-term targets to reduce landfilling and increase recycling and reuse. A shift towards a more circular economy... [ view full abstract ]

The European Commission's Circular Economy Action Plan includes a legislative proposal on waste and provides long-term targets to reduce landfilling and increase recycling and reuse. A shift towards a more circular economy will also lead to more sustainable solutions to modern environmental problems. One of the goals set out in the Action Plan is to achieve a 70 % reuse of materials in building and construction projects. In order to achieve this goal a substantial paradigm shift is needed.

Materials often created as waste in building and construction projects are both soil that is contaminated at a low level and concrete. Currently a lot of these waste fractions are sent straight to landfill based on a lack of legislation and recommendation related to reuse and related to the movement of the soils between sites. Together with brick waste, concrete makes up approximately 13 % of the waste disposed of at Norwegian landfills, whereas contaminated soil accounts for more than 50 % of the landfilled waste. Current legislation opens up for the reuse of waste, although actual acceptance for this is limited, and there are several barriers that hamper the reuse.  A research project "Georesources in a circular economy" is being carried out with the overall aim to develop methods that can be used in order to reduce the amount of material that is landfilled and to encourage reuse. One of the objectives of the project is to identify barriers that hamper the reuse of waste and low level contaminated soil, and which means are necessary to increase the utilization. The reasons for the low percentage of utilization can be both practical and regulatory. This may be related to material characteristics (which need to be improved), current regulations, project logistics in the building and construction sector or challenges regarding the recipient of the reused materials. Results from this work will be presented at the conference.