From rubbles to digital material bank. A digital methodology for construction and demolition waste management in post-disaster areas

Abstract

In 2020, European countries generated 807 mln tons of construction and demolition waste (CDW), accounting for 37.5% of total waste production. The UE Waste Framework Directive of 2008 established as a priority goal to increase the percentage of reuse, recycling and recovery of nonhazardous construction waste to a minimum of 70% by 2020. Pending the report that will define compliance with this goal, the average percentage currently stands at around 50%, of which only 3% involves upcycling operations. This doctoral research defines an operational methodology aimed at implementing digital processes for circularity in the AEC sector, with a focus on post-earthquake emergency Italian contexts. The treatment of CDW in earthquake-affected areas for the purpose of recovery/reuse, in a perspective of circularity, represents an underexplored field and limited, as in the rest of UE, to downcycling operations. By defining planning strategies and digital tools and procedures, the research aims to facilitate the reuse of building elements from post-earthquake demolition and reconstruction operations. The final output of the research consists of a cloud database, a Digital Material Bank (DMB), of informed building elements from post-earthquake selective demolition operations that can be reused in the construction market as a secondary raw material. The CDW management of the 2016 Central Italy earthquake is identified as the scope of application, with a focus on the situation in the Marche region. Finally, the main limitations and possible future scenarios of the research are reported.