El concepto de reciclabilidad aplicado a los materiales de construcción y a los edificios: propuesta de índices para evaluar la reciclabilidad de los sistemas constructivos.

Abstract

Nowadays, it is known that reserves of non-renewable resources are limited and also the waste sent to the air, soil and earth pollute the environment. Besides proposing a change in the architects¿ way of thinking, the climate change requires an improvement in the environment, politics and social consciousness. The chase for a sustainable architecture has also to consider the close down of materials cycles. The aim of this research is to introduce new concepts for the materials that reach the end of their first life cycle, and in addition evaluate the potential of materials recyclability and building elements, usually used in the building construction. The research method is based on a hierarchy order of an up-side-down pyramid given priority to the reuse and recyclability of materials, which will afterwards support the creation of methods to determine their recyclability levels. The proposition of concepts for all different uses of building materials after the end of their life cycles was elaborated from observation of current recycling methods that are economically doable and likewise based on visits done to building materials recycling points in Spain. The results show the concepts created regarding recycled materials, infracycled, reused and infraused, are more suitable to the current situation if the majority of the materials do not reach their end of life cycle. The level of recyclability works as a tool used to make decisions because they allow to quantify the environment betterment in the building processes of buildings that are made from recycled materials or those that can be recycled. In this way, it allows to increase the build and demolish of buildings that apply reused materials or have recycled content, besides contributing for the reduction of the environment impact in comparison to ordinary buildings.