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Building and Environment 44 (2009) 319 330

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Building and Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/buildenv

Life cycle of buildings, demolition and recycling potential: A case study in Turin, Italy
Gian Andrea Blengini a,b,
a b

DITAG: Land, Environment and Geo-Engineering Department, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Turin, Italy IGAG-CNR: Institute of Environmental Geology and Geo-Engineering, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Turin, Italy

a r t i c l e in fo
Article history: Received 4 November 2007 Received in revised form 20 February 2008 Accepted 12 March 2008 Keywords: LCA Life cycle Recycling Demolition Aggregates Resource conservation

abstract
One of the most challenging issues presently facing policymakers and public administrators in Italy concerns what to do with waste materials from building dismantling activities and to understand whether, and to what extent, the ever-increasing quantity of demolition waste can replace virgin materials. The paper presents the results from a research programme that was focused on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a residential building, located in Turin, which was demolished in 2004 by controlled blasting. A detailed LCA model was set-up, based on eld measured data from an urban area under demolition and re-design, paying attention to the end-of-life phase and supplying actual data on demolition and rubble recycling. The results have demonstrated that, while building waste recycling is economically feasible and protable, it is also sustainable from the energetic and environmental point of view. Compared to the environmental burdens associated with the materials embodied in the building shell, the recycling potential is 29% and 18% in terms of life cycle energy and greenhouse emissions, respectively. The recycling potential of the main building materials was made available in order to address future demolition projects and supply basic knowledge in the design for dismantling eld. & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Although it is well known that the use phase rmly remains the most important contributor to the life cycle impacts of buildings [1], interest in understanding energy use, the consumption of natural resources and pollutant emissions in a life cycle perspective is growing, as reported in a number of previous studies [27]. In order to really appraise the overall environmental impacts of buildings, all the life cycle stages should in fact be encompassed by also including the embodied energy and environmental interventions related to the construction materials, construction activities, dismantling operations and the end-of-life of the materials. According to the Rapporto energia e ambiente 2005 issued by ENEA [8], the use phase of buildings in Italy roughly corresponds to 31% of the nal energy use and 31% of greenhouse emissions throughout the country in the year 2004. However, when using the life cycle approach, therefore including the manufacturing of construction materials (cement, bricks, glass, ceramics, etc.) and considering building activities, the nal energy use rises to 37% and greenhouse emissions to 41%.

Tel.: +39 011 564 77 15; fax: +39 011 564 76 99.

E-mail address: blengini@polito.it 0360-1323/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2008.03.007

As the concern over environmental impacts of the construction sector grows, more attention is being paid to those building materials that prove to be more environmentally friendly, namely materials that better meet the twofold objective of reducing both consumption of non-renewable resources and general pollution throughout their entire life cycle. In such a context, secondary materials from demolition and building waste recycling deserve interest. One of the most challenging issues presently worrying policymakers and public administrators in Italy is to decide how to dispose of waste materials from building dismantling activities, whose quantities are becoming greater and greater: 40 million tons per year according to APAT [9]. In such a context, the key issue is to understand whether, and to what extent, such demolition materials can replace virgin building materials and save capacity of waste dumps, in a perspective of environmental sustainability. As far as the environmental aspect is concerned, the LCA methodology makes it possible to understand whether it is worthwhile to replace virgin materials with recycled materials or not [10]. Recycling strategies, in general, have in fact been criticised because of their environmental impacts which sometimes exceed the environmental benets [11]. This is much more probable when a product does not require a large amount of energy during primary production e.g. recycled aggregates from rubble recycling.

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In such a case, it is likely that more energy is being spent throughout recycling than energy being saved as a consequence of avoided primary production. Based on these preliminary considerations, the paper presents the results of a research programme that was focused on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a residential building, located in Turin, which was demolished in 2004 using the controlled blasting technique, under the scientic supervision of the Politecnico di Torino. The research was part of a larger programme of urban redesign run in co-operation between Turin municipality staff and the Politecnico di Torino. The overall objective of the research was to compare alternative waste disposal scenarios, understand where resource use and environmental impacts are concentrated and address strategies for improvements. A more specic objective was focused on the building waste recycling process, in order to assess the recycling potential in terms of energetic-environmental impacts and gains, based on actual measured data from existing demolition and recycling worksites. Recycling operations to convert rubble into secondary aggregates and recycled reinforcing steel bars were carefully analysed, the technical and economic feasibility, as well as the environmental sustainability of rubble recycling operations being of great interest for the public administrators involved in the programme. With that in mind, a detailed LCA model was carried out in es denition [12] also in order to widen compliance with Guine the literature on LCA applications to the building sector, by supplying eld measured data on the demolition and rubble recycling processes which are seldom addressed [2,7], in some cases excluded [6] and often modelled using literature data [1,13,14]. According to Scheuer et al. [15], there is limited quantitative information on the actual process of demolition. A further specic objective was to investigate the actual recycling potential, as dened by Thormark [13,14,16], of different building materials, compare the obtained results with literature data and discuss the suitability and appropriateness of the adopted solutions in order to address future demolition projects and gather knowledge in the design for dismantling eld.

characterisation) that convert LCI results into an indicator for each impact category, and optional elements (normalisation and weighting) that lead to a unique indicator across impact categories using numerical factors based on value-choices. As there is neither consensus on weighting [6,10,11,15,21], nor on the best weighting method to adopt, as far as the present study is concerned, the LCIA phase was initially focused on the characterisation step and thus the following six indicators were considered:

 GER (Gross Energy Requirement) as an indicator relevant to the     

total primary energy resource consumption (direct+indirect+ feedstock) according to Boustead and Hancock [22]; GWP100 (Global Warming Potential) as an indicator relevant to the greenhouse effect according to IPCC [23]; ODP (Ozone Depletion Potential) as an indicator relevant to the stratospheric ozone depletion phenomenon; AP (Acidication Potential) as an indicator relevant to the acid rain phenomenon; EP (Eutrophication Potential) as an indicator relevant to surface water eutrophication; POCP (Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential) as an indicator of photo-smog creation.

2. Methodology The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been used to obtain a comprehensive energetic and environmental picture relevant to the demolition and nal disposal of a block of ats located in Turin, Italy. Although the life cycle approach has not yet been widely applied to the construction waste management sector in Italy, in comparison with the industrial sector, there are some examples of applications [17,18] and interesting future development perspectives. According to ISO 14040 [19], an LCA comprises four major stages: goal and scope denition, life cycle inventory, life cycle impact analysis and interpretation of the results. The Goal and Scope Denition phase denes the overall objectives, the boundaries of the system under study, the sources of data and the functional unit to which the achieved results refer. The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) consists of a detailed compilation of all the environmental inputs (material and energy) and outputs (air, water and solid emissions) at each stage of the life cycle. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phase aims at quantifying the relative importance of all environmental burdens obtained in the LCI by analysing their inuence on the selected environmental effects. According to ISO 14042 [20], the general framework of an LCIA method is composed of mandatory elements (classication and

Characterisation factors for GWP, ODP, AP, EP, POCP indicators are reported in SEMC [24]. However, due to the fact that policymakers and public administrators often express their need for practical tools that might simplify the decision process [11], despite the risk of loosing transparency, the Eco-Indicator 99 method [25] was also used. The LCIA was therefore run at two levels: the rst level corresponding to the characterisation step, thus supplying results with a low level of aggregation, but with a high grade of objectivity, and the second level showing results with a high level of aggregation, thus supplying a more comprehensive environmental picture of the systems under study. According to the ISO 14040 standard, in the last step of an LCA study, the results from the LCI and LCIA stages must be interpreted in order to nd hot spots and compare alternative scenarios. As energy is critical for sustainability of buildings, the interpretation step was mainly focused on life cycle energy (GER), which corresponds to total energy, as dened in Sartori and Hestnes [1]. Although global warming potential is closely correlated to energy use, GWP100 has also been considered in order to understand whether the decarbonation of raw materials that occurs during clinker burning can inuence the recycling potential in a concrete-framed building. Moreover, in order to extend the assessment to other environmental aspects and obtain a more comprehensive, but synthetic, picture, Eco-Indicator 99 was also used. Eco-Indicator 99 is a weighting method that converts inventory results into a single score comprehensive environmental indicator that encompasses human health, ecosystem quality and use of resources. The hierarchist version of EcoIndicator 99 and the H/A weighting set, based on a panel expert approach, as fully reported in Goedkoop and Spriensma [25], were used. SimaPro 6 [26] and Boustead Model 5 [27] software applications were used as supporting tools in order to implement the LCA model and carry out the assessment.

3. LCA application to demolition and rubble recycling The present LCA study deals with a residential block of ats located in Via Fratelli Garrone, Turin, Italy (see Fig. 1 and Table 1).

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The building was erected by Recchi SpA in 1965 and demolished at the end of the year 2004 after 40 years of lifetime. The study consisted of a from-cradle-to-grave LCA of a real case residential building which included all the life cycle phases, with emphasis on production of construction materials and end-of-life management. Inventory data from previous LCA research relevant to cement and concrete products [28,29] were used as input data for the LCA modelling, thus increasing the local representativeness of the achieved results. As far as end-of-life is concerned, a great effort was made by the Politecnico di Torino research staff to design and monitor the building demolishing by blasting and to address rubble recycling. The main objectives relevant to the present research include:

 Analysing the relative contribution of life phases to the overall    

energy consumption and environmental impacts of an existing residential block of ats; Analysing the relative contributions of building materials to the pre-use phase impacts; Identifying environmental impacts and benets relevant to demolition and rubble recycling; Assessing opportunities for alternative end-of-life scenarios; Assessing the actual recycling potential of building materials in a life cycle perspective.

3.1. Functional unit According to Adalberth et al. [2], a frequently adopted functional unit is the unitary internal-usable oor area, sometimes with reference to the whole building life span and sometimes with reference to 1 year. However, in some cases, the reference unit is chosen as a single at, considered as a living unit, or might even refer to the number of occupants living inside the building. Such a choice is, of course, arbitrary, but, for comparison purposes, a standardisation might be helpful. This is also relevant to the function of the system under study: supplying a home for residential use for a given period of time. All this considered, the adopted functional unit in the present case-study is 1 m2 net oor area, over a period of 1 year. 3.2. System boundaries Three distinct phases: pre-use, use and end-of-life were included in the model (see Fig. 2). Data for the LCA model were retrieved from different sources, as reported in Table 2. In particular, inventory data for concrete and cement products were retrieved from previous LCA research by the author [29], while

other building materials, ancillary materials and use of building equipment were modelled from Idemat 2001 [30] and ETH-ESU [31] databases included in the SimaPro software package. The Buwal 250 database [32] was the source for transport operations, electricity and diesel use. Inventory data for steel recycling from steel scrap were made available by IISI (The International Iron and Steel Institute) [33]. The pre-use phase consists of the manufacturing and transportation of building materials, as well as the erection of the building envelope. Therefore, in order to complete the model, inventory data relevant to the most important building materials were included. The quantities were estimated from original building drawings. However, the materials embodied in the building xtures were the most difcult to estimate. While an estimation of copper wires was attempted, no reliable estimations for water pipes, heaters or other equipment were feasible, therefore such elements were excluded. Sanitaryware items, whose position and dimensions could be gathered from design drawings, were included. Elements such as furniture, cooking equipment and mobile items, were not included. As far as production and transportation of concrete and cement are concerned, it was assumed that such products were manufactured in existing plants by local producers. Steel reinforcing bars were assumed to be produced according to the average processes that characterise the European steel industry [33]. Inventory data for such products were gathered from IISI (International Iron and Steel Institute), as well as from databases included in the SimaPro/Boustead software packages. With regard to the shell construction, it is important to recall that the block of ats under analysis was built by

Table 1 Main features of the Via Garrone building Building features Basement shape Basement dimensions Total elevation Elevation, per oor Basement depth No of oors above ground level Total building volume No of ats No of lifts, stairs No of ats, per oor Net area, Type A at Net area, Type B at Gross area, per oor Net area, per oor Total net area (usable) Rectangular 56.7 m 11.7 m 36 m 3m 1.58 m 10 22,000 m3 80 4 8 65.8 m2 86.75 m2 663 m2 611 m2 6110 m2

Fig. 1. View and location of the building under study.

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Raw material mining/quarrying Building material production PRE-USE PHASE Transport

Building shell construction

USE PHASE (40 years)

Building dismantling/demolition

END-OF-LIFE PHASE

Transport

Transport

Building waste recycling

Residual waste landfill

Recycled steel bars (avoided product)

Recycled aggregate (avoided product)

Fig. 2. System boundaries.

assembling prefabricated elements. This makes a considerable difference, in comparison with a conventional on-site building technique, in terms of energy and ancillary material use, as well as in terms of material wasted during the construction of the building. Therefore, operations for erecting the house were considered in terms of energy use and construction waste factors. The use phase encompasses all activities related to the use of the house, over the 40-year life span. These activities include all operating energy consumed for heating, cooling, sanitary water production, lighting and cooking. As a detailed survey on the actual operational phase of the building was not one of the overall objectives of the research, basic information on energy use was obtained from ofcial statistics [8] and therefore represents the average Italian situation. Moreover, it is worth noticing that, in addition to the day-to-day residential use of the building, some authors [2,4,5] also include energy and materials for refurbishment in the use-phase. However, in this specic case study, due to the fact that the research was mainly focused on the inuence of material production and recycling, and due to the fact that virtually all interior walls were made of reinforced concrete, therefore not allowing signicant building re-modelling, maintenance operations were included in the pre-use phase. As the last step, the end-of-life phase inventories the demolishing of the building shell and the nal disposal of waste (see Fig. 3). Field measured data relevant to the dismantling operations were

included by encompassing the preliminary operations before blasting, on-site primary treatment of the dismantling products and transportation of the rubble to recycling or landll facilities. Two main groups of waste materials were sent for recycling: the rst made of lithoid based materials such as concrete, bricks, mortar, plaster, glass, ceramics and the second constituted by steel products. Doors and windows were partially disassembled and removed before blasting, but their disposal was considered to fall outside the system boundaries and was therefore not included in the LCA model. Quantities of rubble after secondary demolition and recycled material ows were measured on-site by weighting the trucks and checking the transportation records. According to these records, less than 1% of the rubble was landlled (plastic, insulating materials, etc.), while 99% was converted into recycled materials. The lithoid fraction was converted into a secondary aggregate and used as inlling material, therefore avoiding the production of virgin aggregates and their transportation. The steel material was partially recovered directly at the worksite and partially separated from the lithoid fraction after rubble beneciation and sent to the steel factory to be recycled into reinforcing steel bars, therefore avoiding the production of primary steel. As rubble crushing and sorting allow both secondary aggregate recycling and steel scrap magnetic separation, a simple mass allocation criterion was adopted.

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Table 2 Building life cycle phases, subsystems and data sources Life cycle phase Pre-use Subsystem Building material production Sources of data

 
Transport

Inventory data for cement, concrete, plaster and mortar from specic measured data reported in Blengini [29] Inventory data for the other building materials from IDEMAT 2001 [30] and ETH-ESU 96 [31] Quantities estimated from building drawings Average distances from specic measured data Data for transport operations from Buwal 250 [32]

 

Fig. 4 shows the relative contribution of the inventoried building materials. Concrete is the main constituent, representing 83% in mass, followed by steel bars, bricks and plaster (4% each). Mortar and ceramics (the latter including ceramic tiles, glass and sanitaryware) contributed by 2% each. Other items: painting, insulating materials, wood, copper, aluminium and plastics, all together contributed less than 1%. As far as building operations for the shell erection are concerned, the energy use was estimated as 800 GJ of electricity and 1480 GJ of diesel for crane, building equipment, trucks, diggers and loaders. An estimation of material losses during the construction phase was carried out by analysing literature data [5] and considering the peculiarities of the building technique adopted for the building under study. Average transport distances were considered, as reported in Table 4.

Building construction (including refurbishment)

 

Energy use from personal communications Construction losses from literature data reported in Blanchard and Reppe [5] Average quantities from Italian statistics [8] Italian electricity mix from the Buwal 250 database Inventory data for fuel production and use from Buwal 250

4.2. The building use phase The building use phase was inventoried by considering statistical data [8] according to which the yearly energy consumption of an average Italian residential building is 16.5 kg oil equivalent per square metre. Therefore, 168.88 TJ of end-use energy, corresponding to the day-to-day running of the block of ats over the 40-year life span, were included in the model. Heating (67%) was powered by diesel during the rst 10 years and then converted to natural gas for the remaining 30 years, while the sanitary water supply (12%) and cooking (6%) were powered by natural gas. Lighting (14%) was powered by electricity according to the Italian mix.

Use (operational phase)

Use of electricity and fuels for heating, sanitary water, lighting

  

End-of-life

Building demolition

  

Demolition operations and quantities from specic measured data. Production of explosives from the ETH-ESU 96 database Use of hydraulic equipment from ETH-ESU 96 database Specic measured data Literature data reported in Brimacombe and Shoneld [33] and personal communications from IISI (International Iron and Steel Institute)

4.3. The building demolishing and rubble disposal phase The building under study was demolished using the blasting technique, placing explosive charges on one side of the shell basement. As can be seen in Fig. 3, the whole building shell was made to topple on one side and subsequently the structure was further demolished by means of hydraulic hammers and shears. Before blasting, the whole area was rendered safe: the trees were cut, the streetlights were removed, the walking area was delimited and protection barriers were positioned against blast throwing. Moreover, in order to support blast demolition, the building shell was weakened by cutting some pillars, concrete slabs, beans and walls using diamond wire and diamond disk cutting machines. Blast holes (2535 mm diameter) were drilled and charged with explosive cartridges. Pre-blasting operations were carried out over a period of 3 months and were included in the LCA model, as shown in Table 6. After blasting, a rst on-site size reduction and material selection was carried out using dieselhydraulic equipment in order to sort the rubble and send it to the appropriate disposal. The on-site rubble treatment lasted 40 days. Fig. 5 shows the sequence of rubble recycling activities, after blast demolition, as they were included in the model (see Table 7). The entire lithoid fraction was sent to the treatment plant where about 8500 ton of recycled aggregates were produced. As far as the LCA model is concerned, the production of recycled aggregates was considered as an avoided impact equal to the environmental burdens associated with the displaced natural aggregates. A mobile rubble crusher (see Fig. 3) Ulisse Omtrack II equipped with a jaw crusher and magnetic separator, which can operate a size reduction from a maximum element size of 900 mm to a granulate 0100 mm, was used in order to process the concrete, bricks, mortar, plaster, roof tiles, tiles, glass and sanitaryware.

Aggregate recycling Steel recycling

 

4. Inventory analysis An LCA model of a complex system, such as a block of ats, usually results in a network made of several process units. A description of the main inventoried elements is given in the following paragraphs. 4.1. The building and its construction phase In order to systematically detect and quantify the building shell components, 10 subsystems were identied, as shown in Table 3. Table 4 summarises the quantities of the main materials embodied in the shell, the transportation distances and the building waste factors, the latter being adapted from Blanchard and Reppe [5] and Chen et al. [7]. The total estimated mass of the building was 8882 ton. The reinforced concrete was assumed to be composed of 105 kg of reinforcing steel bars and 2395 kg of concrete per cubic metre. The main energetic and environmental characteristics of the cement and concrete used in the LCA model [29] are summarised in Table 5.

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Fig. 3. Blast demolition and rubble recycling of the building under study.

Table 3 Building envelope subsystems included in the model Building envelope subsystems Basement Structural walls Non-structural walls Floors Floor surface lining Doors/windows Appliances (electric, sanitary water, heating) Roof Stairs, elevators Wall surface lining Main building materials Concrete, reinforcing steel bars Concrete, reinforcing steel bars, insulating materials Bricks, mortar, paint Concrete, reinforcing steel bars, wire net, insulating materials Ceramics, linoleum, parquet, dimension stones Wood, glass, plastic, aluminium Pipes, ducts, sanitaryware, radiators Concrete, bricks, roof tiles, wood Concrete, reinforcing steel bars Mortar, painting, ceramics, dimension stones

5. Impact assessment and interpretation of the results The impact assessment phase was carried out, by encompassing both the characterisation and weighting steps, according to the ISO 14042 standard. Table 8 summarises the achieved results relevant to the life cycle of the building under study, with reference to the adopted functional unit. As the rst objective of the research was an evaluation of the relative weight of the life cycle phases, it clearly appears that, as expected, the use phase of a conventional building overshadows the rest of the life cycle, its contribution being variable from 90.1% to 95.2%, depending on the indicator, thus conrming the results obtained in previous studies [1]. The pre-use phase, considered as the joint contribution of building materials and construction operations, accounted for 6.2% to 11.5%. It is worth noticing how the end-of-life corresponds to a negative contribution or, in other terms, to a net achieved environmental gain ranging from 0.2% to 2.6%. This can be explained in terms of avoided impacts that can be traced back to the secondary construction materials that enter future life cycles in substitution of virgin products. In this specic case study, the net environmental gain is given by the difference between avoided impacts due to the substitution of virgin building materials (gross credit) and impacts caused by transportation and recycling processes (induced impacts). Thus, the net environmental gain corresponds to the recycling potential dened in Thormark [13,14]. Recycled materials will in fact be used in future life cycles and the system from which they are delivered must therefore be credited. In accordance with the objectives outlined in the goal and scope denition phase, the following interpretation steps were carried out.

As far as the steel waste is concerned, 225 ton (70%) were immediately recovered at the worksite after demolition, while a further 96 ton (30%) was recovered after rubble crushing and sorting. The avoided impacts corresponding to steel recycling were calculated according to the IISI procedure [33] which supplies inventory data for steel production from both virgin raw minerals (BOFBasic Oxigen Furnace) and from steel scrap (EAFElectric Arc Furnace). It is worth noticing that, while the lithoid rubble was declassed to a relatively poor quality recycled material, steel scrap can always be recycled into good quality steel bars with roughly the same characteristics as virgin steel. According to Brimacombe and Shoneld [33], the mass yield of secondary steel production from scrap is 93.5%. The LCA model also considered copper wire recycling from electric plants, including wire separation from the insulating coating and the re-use of recovered wood after secondary demolition. The residual waste (polystyrene, plastic, PVC, etc.) was modelled as the landlling of inert waste.

5.1. Contribution of construction materials Fig. 6 shows the relative contribution of the building materials to the impacts relevant to the pre-use phase. As can easily be seen,

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Table 4 Materials in the building envelope, inventory data sources, quantities, transport distances and construction waste factors Material Concrete Steel bars Bricks Mortar Plaster Paint Mineral wool Wood Glass Ceramic Roof tiles Plastic (PVC) Aluminium Copper Data source Blengini [29] IDEMAT 2001 [30] IDEMAT 2001 [30] Blengini [29] Blengini [29] ETH-ESU 96 [31] ETH-ESU 96 [31] ETH-ESU 96 [31] ETH-ESU 96 [31] IDEMAT 2001 [30] IDEMAT 2001 [30] IDEMAT 2001 [30] BUWAL 250 [32] IDEMAT 2001 [30] Quantity (t) 7334 321.4 385 188 363 9 16.1 9.6 9 186.5 41 21 0.29 0.5 Transport distance (km) 20 150 20 20 20 20 20 150 30 50 25 50 100 100 Construction waste factor (%) 7 7 10 10 10 7 7 7 7 10 7 7 5 5

Table 5 Eco-proles of the cement and concrete used in the LCA model Impact category Energy resources Global warming Ozone depletion Acidication Eutrophication Photochemical smog Source: Ref. [29]. Indicator GER GWP100 ODP AP EP POCP Unit MJ kg CO2(eq) g CFC11eq mol H+ g O2(eq) g C2H4(eq) Cement II A-LL 42,5 R (1 ton) 4756 833 0.21 67.25 9760 8.39 Concrete Rck25 (1 ton) 642 97 0.03 10.40 1721 1.08

AVERAGE MASS: 1.45 t/m2 (36 kg/m2, year) plaster 4% mortar 2% bricks 4% ceramics 2% others 1% concrete 83%

5.2. Alternative end-of-life scenarios In order to better understand the magnitude and therefore the relative importance of a proper building end-of-life management, a second disposal scenario was considered, Thus, after blasting demolition and on-site size reduction, the rubble was considered to be entirely landlled. Fig. 7 shows the achieved results, the comparison being restricted to the pre-use and end-of-life phases. As can be seen, under the hypothesis that no rubble recycling is carried out, no environmental net gains are achieved. Thus, the recycling potential is lost and, consequently, the life cycle impacts, excluding the building operational phase, are increased by 17% to 54%.

rebars 4%
Fig. 4. Average composition of the building shell and xtures.

Table 6 Input data for the demolition operations Operation Electricity for diamond wire/disk equipment (MJ) Explosives (kg) Detonating cord (kg) Electricity for drilling (kWh) Trench excavation (m3) Damping heap creation (m3) Quantity 1080 205 20 175 440 2000

5.3. Analysis of impacts and benets relevant to demolition and rubble recycling The results have shown that the end-of-life benets are quite small in comparison with the whole life cycle, but their relative importance increases when the comparison is restricted to the pre-use phase. For this purpose, the recycling processes were analysed more in detail. The net and gross benets or, in other terms, recycling potentials and gross credits were compared. Fig. 8 shows a comparison between the environmental burdens of the materials embodied in the shell, the impacts relevant to building waste recycling, the gross credits and the recycling potential. The analysis was focused on total energy use and greenhouse emissions, as they are considered very important issues in the building sector, but, in order to also encompass the other environmental aspects, the analysis was also extended by using Eco-Indicator 99.

the most important contributors are concrete and steel bars, whose shares range from 29.4% to 71.4% and from 2.9% to 39.4%, respectively. While concrete is the rst contributor to global warming, ozone layer depletion, eutrophication and photo-smog, steel is the main contributor to energy use and acidication.

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On site secondary demolition (separation, size reduction)

Hydraulic hammer use

Total rubble: 8,882 t

37 t

9.6 t Concrete, steel, bricks, roof tiles, ceramics, mortar, plaster, glass

225 t

Common waste: plastic, foam board

Wood

Reinforcing steel bars

On site re-use Transport to Landfill 20 km Transport to recycling facilities 10 km

Transport to Steel factory 20 km

Diesel use Electricity use

Steel recycling (EAF) Crusher

Recycled aggregate 8,514 t

Recycled steel 96 t

Fig. 5. Activities for secondary demolition, waste processing and recycling.

Table 7 Input data for the rubble processing operations Operation Secondary on-site demolition Mixed rubble loading Transport of steel to factory Transport of steel to factory Transport of waste to landll Transport of lithoid rubble Lithoid rubble loading Crushing and steel separation (mobile equipment) Steel scrap loading Equipment Hydraulic hammer Hydraulic loader Truck 16 ton Train Truck 16 ton Truck 28 ton Hydraulic loader Jaw crusher and magnetic separator Hydraulic loader Quantity (ton) 2960 8882 321 321 25 8622 8622 8622 96 Input data 1330 m3 4000 m3 6420 ton-km 35,310 ton-km 502 ton-km 86,220 ton-km 51,732 MJ 11,588 kWh 576 MJ

Table 8 Results after the LCIA phase relevant to the Via Garrone building (data per m2, year) LCIA step Impact category Indicator Unit Material manufacturing and transport 69.7 6.2 1.3 1.1 144 61.0 (7%) (9.2%) (4.2%) (5.9%) (4.1%) (6.5%) Envelope erection and renovation 21.1 1.5 0.7 0.4 71 18.2 (2.1%) (2.3%) (2.4%) (2.4%) (2.0%) (1.9%) Use phase (operation) 928.1 60.2 29.6 17.3 3333 865.6 (92.9%) (90.1%) (94.4%) (93.9%) (95.2%) (91.8%) End-of-life phase 20.3 1.1 0.3 0.4 47 2.2 (2.0%) (1.6%) (1.0%) (2.1%) (1.3%) (0.2%) Total life cycle 998.6 66.8 31.3 18.4 3502 942.7 4.59

Characterisation

Energy resources Global warming Ozone depletion Acidication Eutrophication Photo-smog

GER GWP100 ODP AP EP POCP EI99

MJ kg CO2 mg CFC11 mol H+ g O2 mg C2H4 Pt

Weighting

0.34 (7.4%)

0.10 (2.2%)

4.27 (93.0%)

0.12 (2.6%)

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100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% GER Steel Concrete Mortar & plaster Brick & ceramics Others 39.4% 29.4% 8.1% 12.4% 10.6% GWP 22.0% 48.6% 14.3% 10.3% 4.7% ODP 2.9% 71.4% 19.8% 1.0% 4.9% AP 39.0% 32.6% 8.9% 8.5% 11.0% EP 29.0% 42.6% 11.8% 10.1% 6.4% POCP 7.9% 55.4% 15.1% 2.9% 18.6% EI-99 35.7% 31.2% 8.7% 15.9% 8.5%

Fig. 6. Contribution of building materials to the impacts of the pre-use phase.

160% 140% 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% GER GWP ODP AP recycling scenario EP 100% landfill POCP EI-99

Fig. 7. Inuence of alternative end-of-life scenarios on the life cycle impacts (use phase excluded).

As a rst step, some interesting remarks can be made considering the ratio between recycling potentials and gross credits given in Fig. 8, thus supplying an estimation of the waste recycling efciency. With such an approach, the recycling efciency, in terms of energy saving, can be estimated to be around 54% and 83%, for recycled steel and recycled aggregates, respectively. In other terms, if rubble and scrap are considered to hold no environmental burdens, according to the so-called zero burden assumption [34,35], the aggregates and steel recycling processes have the potential of replacing virgin materials, therefore avoiding their burdens (gross credit). Nevertheless, they are responsible for their own impacts (recycling impacts), thus leading to the net gain (recycling potential). As far as greenhouse emissions are considered, the saving efciency of steel recycling from steel waste is around 60%, while it is 82% for aggregates. The magnitude of such gures is conrmed by Eco-Indicator 99. However, according to the objectives of the study, it would be meaningful to compare the recycling potential with the environmental burdens associated with the corresponding shell embodied materials. With this approach, it should be recognised that the life cycle saving efciency, expressed by the ratio between the fourth and the rst column of Fig. 8, is signicantly lower. In the case of steel scrap, which can be re-converted into a valuable building material, similar to virgin steel, a net 50% life

cycle energy saving is achievable. On the contrary, in the case of recycled aggregates, due to the fact that original building materials (mainly concrete, mortar, plaster, bricks, etc.) were downgraded into a relatively poor construction material (recycled aggregate), the life cycle recovered energy is only 19%. Therefore, while the process of aggregate recycling from rubble is relatively less energetic expensive than steel recycling from scrap, the life cycle benets of steel recycling appear to be greater than those achievable by recycling lithoid rubble. When greenhouse emissions are considered, the life cycle saving is 54% for steel and 10% for aggregates. If the analysis is carried out using Eco-Indicator 99, the life cycle impact abatements are 62% and 21% in the case of steel and aggregates, respectively.

5.4. Sensitivity analysis As mentioned in the goal and scope denition step, most of those inventory data considered strategic for the objectives of the research were eld measured data. Among these, primary inventory data for concrete manufacturing and eld measured data relevant to the building end-of-life were used. However, in order to assess the reliability and representativeness of the results, a sensitivity analysis was carried out.

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40 30 GER (MJ/m2,y) 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 Embodied burdens Steel Aggregate 5000 GWP (gCO2eq/m2,y) 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 -1000 -2000 Embodied burdens Steel Aggregate 250 200 150 100 50 0 -50 -100 -150 Embodied burdens Steel Aggregate 121.1 195.5 Recycling impacts 34.3 7.6 Gross credit -109.6 -47.8 Recycling potential -75.3 -40.2 1360.0 4588.3 Recycling impacts 487.5 99.8 Gross credit -1225.0 -542.5 Recycling potential -737.5 -442.8 27.5 36.1 Recycling impacts 11.4 1.4 Gross credit -25.1 -8.2 Recycling potential -13.7 -6.8

according to Ecoinvent being compensated by the higher energy requirement for steel. The differences in terms of greenhouse emissions fall within a range of 15% and +11%. Higher differences occur when other indicators are considered. The results of the sensitivity analysis clearly show that the uncertainties relevant to the inventory data of building materials are quite tolerable, as far as energy and greenhouse emissions are concerned, but the other indicators are less reliable.

6. Discussion As expected, the environmental impacts relevant to the use phase of a medium size conventional building are, by far, the most important. However, although the magnitude of impacts related to operational energy might overshadow the remaining life phases, this rst conclusion should not be misinterpreted. In fact, while it is true that effective improvements should rst be searched for within the use phase, further signicant benets can certainly be achieved by paying attention to pre-use and end-of-life. For instance, the selection of materials, design of building features and choice of construction techniques can signicantly lower environmental burdens that can be ascribed to the building shell, and they can greatly inuence the subsequent use phase, for instance by reducing the energy requirement for heating and cooling purposes. Moreover, the selection of the building materials that can more effectively be recycled at the end-of-life, as well as the choice of proper beneciation processes, could further lower the full life cycle impacts. As remarked in previous studies [6,13], the more energy needed for operation decreases, the more important it is to pay attention to both energy for material production and to the aspects of the recycling potential, thus emphasising the need for further research on the recycling potential of different building materials. The present research showed that environmental benets obtained from the proper management of the end-of-life phase are relatively small (0.22.6%), compared to the full life cycle impacts of a conventional building (Table 8). However, if compared to the energetic and environmental burdens of the shell embodied materials, which is more consistent with the objectives of the present research, the importance of the recycling potential signicantly increases. The recycling potential is in fact 29% of the energy used for manufacturing and transporting the building materials (Table 8), not far from the results reported by Thormark [13] where the recycling potential was estimated to be between 35% and 40%. Moreover, as this research also considered other life cycle impacts, the recycling potential, in terms of environmental impact saving, could be estimated: 18% and 35% for GWP and Eco-Indicator 99, respectively. It clearly emerged that a proper end-of-life management can allow a signicant saving of those environmental burdens associated with steel reinforcing bars (50% of GER and 54% of GWP). However, in the case of lithoid materials, only a lower share of impacts can be compensated through demolition and recycling, the recycling potential for GER (19%) being higher than the corresponding potential for GWP (10%). However, due to the fact that LCA models are greatly inuenced by the hypothesis and assumptions undertaken during the goal and scope denition phase, as well as during inventory elaboration, the sensitivity analysis was helpful to nd out which input parameters inuence the nal results to the greater extent.

Fig. 8. Embodied burdens, waste recycling impacts, gross credits and recycling potentials of the Via Garrone building.

The impacts relevant to the pre-use phase were re-calculated by considering different data sources for the two most important building materials: concrete and steel. The baseline LCA model was then compared to a second model in which the inventory data relevant to concrete were retrieved from the Idemat 2001 database [30] and then compared to a third model based on data from the Ecoinvent 1.2 database [36]. For comparison, the GER of concrete is 831 and 610 MJ/ton and the GWP is 67 and 108 kgCO2(eq)/ton according to Idemat and Ecoinvent, respectively. As can be seen in Fig. 9, the differences in terms of energy requirement are lower than 8%, in comparison with the baseline model. For instance, the baseline and Ecoinvent models virtually lead to the same result, the lower energy requirement for concrete

EI-99 (mPt/m2,y)

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130% 120% 110% 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% GER GWP BASELINE ODP IDEMAT 2001 AP ECOINVENT EP POCP

Fig. 9. Sensitivity analysis: inuence of concrete and steel inventory sources.

7. Conclusions The results gathered from the present LCA application to a real building demolition in Italy have demonstrated that, in a life cycle perspective, building waste recycling is feasible and protable from the energetic and environmental points of view. From an economic point of view, it is worth noticing that all the recycling operations were nanced by private operators which saved costs for not having to pay landll taxes and obtained an income for selling the recycled aggregates and steel scrap to downstream private companies, without any public nancial support. A further important environmental benet was achieved: the avoided landlling of demolition waste, therefore saving capacity of waste dumps. This is a very important issue in terms of sustainability as land is becoming more and more a scarce resource, especially in a densely populated country like Italy, at the same time industrialised and rich in natural and cultural beauties. Further research should consider this issue within the LCA analysis by using appropriate quantitative indicators. Bearing this in mind, old buildings that have to be demolished can be considered as aggregate quarries, but this must not be misinterpreted. It is not fair to think that such new secondary quarries could substantially displace conventional ones. Quality requirements for commodities used in many construction activities do not allow the use of recycled material. Furthermore, decay of quality, loss of mass, energy consumption and pollution caused during recycling processes are objective and insurmountable limits to recycling. The correct solution probably lies somewhere between conventional and secondary quarries. It would be unwise to underestimate one or the other. In order to achieve the best environmental solution and to dene the right proportion between the natural and recycled raw materials that are necessary for the economic and social development of mankind, all life cycle phases, from-cradle-tograve, must be considered. Only with such an approach is it possible to establish whether mankind is currently over-exploiting natural raw materials and energy resources or, on the other hand, is pursuing a dream of full recycling that causes secondary materials to be more environmentally harmful than the corresponding primary materials. Moreover, if statistics relevant to yearly construction and demolition waste production (0.7 ton per capita) are compared to the yearly building aggregate requirement in Italy (611 ton per capita), it clearly emerges that the potential contribution of recycled aggregates to the Italian requirement ranges from 6% to

9%. Recycled and natural aggregates for the construction industry should not therefore be considered in competition, but it is strategic to consider their joint utilisation.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Tiziana di Carlo for her help in the data collection and elaboration, Elena Garbarino of the Provincia di Torino for her work on some of the estimations relevant to building materials and Professor Vanni Badino for his help in editing. References
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