The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has caused widespread devastation, with homes, hospitals, theaters, and office buildings reduced to rubble. According to official reports, 120,000 private homes and 20,000 apartment blocks were destroyed or damaged by Russian airstrikes, causing more than 128 billion euros in total damage to infrastructure.
Apart from the enormous economic cost of rebuilding the country, there is also a significant environmental impact. Construction waste threatens to saturate landfills in Ukraine, which would release huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Cement used as a binding ingredient is responsible for approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions, more than fuel in aviation.
To address this challenge, a Ukrainian construction company called Kopach Profi has shifted its focus to recycling construction waste generated from the demolition of buildings and structures. However, most recycling technologies currently available grind the broken concrete down to low-quality gravel that contains impurities and is not suitable for building.
Kopach is looking at other pioneering European countries with new recycling methods. The EU has guidelines for a “wrecking loop” to minimize the amount of construction waste that ends up in landfills and create new jobs in the process. Switzerland leads the way when it comes to recycled concrete, with 18% of the concrete used in the country containing recycled materials.
A professor at the Free University of Brussels has developed a more comprehensive way to recycle concrete, which involves extracting all the solid components from the waste mechanically and using a specially designed high-power microwave oven to heat the cement to 600 degrees Celsius to break its chemical bond and return it to a reusable state. Although the technology is not yet ready to go live, Kopach is excited about the possibilities and is in contact with the professor and the CEO of the Dutch company Slim Breker, which has created the SmartCrusher machine that performs separation.
Reconstruction in a war zone has its challenges, though, as workers must first detect the presence of explosives before dismantling rubble and structural remains and sorting and processing the various types of waste before recycling can begin. Kopach plans to start with heavily damaged areas that are far from the front line and has called on other European companies to contribute their experience and equipment to process destroyed buildings and structures.
