Plastics have long been widely utilized in the building and construction (B&C) sector in a great number of applications and consequently, masses of construction and demolition (C&D) plastic waste are generated annually in the European Union (EU) and Finland. Despite this, plastic contents in C&D waste are still relatively poorly studied. Additionally, as practices promoting linear economy have long been prevailing, there are currently many issues relating to C&D plastic recycling.
The main purpose of this report was to identify and discuss the legislative and logistical challenges and barriers of C&D plastic recycling in the EU and Finland. The report was carried out in the form of literature review, and it provides a general overview on the current situation regarding C&D waste and its management in the EU and Finland.
The current legislative framework of the EU isn’t yet sufficient to create conditions for the markets to embrace secondary plastic materials instead of primary plastics. Some of the main challenges and barriers for the recycling of C&D plastic waste in the EU were identified to be lacking enforcement and implementation of the current legislation and policies, low taxation on both waste incineration and landfilling, the lack of EU-wide End-of-Waste (EoW) criteria, and insufficient recycling targets overlooking C&D plastics. Some of the challenges apply to Finland as well. The lack of regard for C&D plastics other than film plastics, lack of disincentive for incineration, slow progress in circularity measures and overlapping environmental legislation are among challenges hampering the recycling of C&D plastics in Finland.
In terms of logistical challenges and barriers, both the EU and Finland have struggled with the separate collection of C&D plastics, lack of treatment stations, and tracing, transparency and data issues relating to C&D plastic waste. In Finland, there is no strong culture for plastic recycling – let alone C&D plastic recycling – and distances between processing facilities are lengthy. Recycling especially demolition plastic waste is often very challenging or even not possible due to inaccessibility, dirtiness and contamination, cost of logistics, and lack of treatment and processing options.
Overall, there is a need for further research regarding plastics in the current European building stock, utilization and placement of plastics in new construction, plastics in C&D waste, and the cost of logistics in the C&D plastic recycling chain. However, despite all kinds of challenges and barriers, C&D plastic recycling shows great promise. With necessary research and legislative changes, planned construction, high level of plastic tracing, development of the existing and new technologies, and a broad cultural shift towards embracing circular economy of all plastics, high circularity of C&D plastics can be achieved both in the European Union and Finland.
