At the moment, the rubble is merely a backdrop to the human suffering felt throughout Ukraine; homes, theatres, hospitals, and office buildings have been destroyed.
As a result of Russian airstrikes, approximately 120,000 private homes and 20,000 apartment buildings have been destroyed or damaged, a Ukrainian minister announced last July. According to statistics from the beginning of this year, the total damage caused to physical infrastructure exceeds 128 billion euros. Alongside the enormous economic costs associated with rebuilding the country, there is also slow environmental pollution occurring, as millions of tonnes of construction waste threaten to overwhelm Ukraine's landfill sites. Rebuilding from scratch, meanwhile, would create a massive volume of greenhouse gas emissions. Concrete is the most widely used man-made substance on Earth. Cement, used as a binder, generates approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions – more than aviation fuel.
Ukrainian construction company seeks solutions
“What can be done with such a huge volume of construction waste?” This is the question that Dmytro Rodionov, director of the construction company Kopach Profi, asks himself.
No landfill site is capable of processing such a volume, which could trigger not just an economic, but also an environmental catastrophe.
The company Kopach Profi was founded in the eastern city of Dnipro in 2019, and until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was working around the clock.
Kopach processed waste at one of the country's largest metallurgical plants in nearby Zaporizhzhia. Every month, seven days a week, the company's equipment extracted useful products from 200,000 tonnes of dumped material. Now, the plant’s work has stopped, Dmytro tells Euronews Green. “We had to look for other lines of operation to keep our staff and be as useful as possible to our country's economy during this difficult time.”
“Most populated areas in our country are completely or partially devastated,” he explains. “We have decided to focus on processing construction waste generated by demolished buildings and structures.”
Can concrete waste be recycled?
The problem, Dmytro explains, is that most technological equipment crushes concrete into low-quality aggregate that contains a lot of impurities. It is suitable as a base for roads but not suitable as a building material for houses. Therefore, Kopach is looking for examples in other European countries that are pioneers in developing new recycling methods.
The European Union is moving towards the implementation of a “closed-loop demolition” in its guidelines, where a much smaller proportion of construction debris is sent to landfills. This process also creates new jobs. Some European countries are doing better in this area than others. In the Netherlands, waste can only be landfilled if it cannot be recovered. In terms of recycled concrete, Switzerland leads the way, where 18% of the concrete used in the country comes from recycled materials. However, another method caught Dmytro's attention…
The new concrete recycling method
A professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) has joined forces with professionals in Belgium and the Netherlands to develop a more complete way of recycling concrete. Concrete consists of stones or gravel, sand, a binder – usually cement – and water. All these solid components can be recovered from waste, explains Professor Hubert Rahier.
“Sand and gravel are released from concrete if it is mechanically crushed in a special way. The finer part, which contains the hydrated and therefore ‘ready’ cement, must then be processed until it can be used again as a binder.”
The Dutch company Slim Breker has created a “SmartCrusher” machine of the same name, which performs the separation. Then, a specially designed high-power microwave oven begins to treat the cement volume, heating it to 600 °C to break the chemical bond and return it to a reusable state.
“This process uses electricity generated by solar panels at our partner Rutte’s facility in Zaandam, so the whole process can be carried out without additional carbon dioxide emissions,” says Rahier. Dmytro wrote to the professor after reading about this process on the internet and was “pleasantly surprised” to receive a reply. A Ukrainian-speaking translator based in Brussels helped in negotiations with Rahier and Slim Breker CEO Koos Schenk.
“This confirms once again that, wherever we are, every Ukrainian is ready to contribute to the development and reconstruction of our country,” says Dmytro.
What could be the problems associated with recycling materials from demolished buildings in Ukraine?
However, the new technology is not yet fully ready for implementation. Some refinements are needed for the SmartCrusher, but H. Rahier says he expects the machines to be ready by the end of the year.
Reconstruction in a war zone has its own dangerous schedule. “It is not an easy path,” Dmytro admits. “First, it is necessary to carry out site surveys by specialist services to determine the presence of explosive objects, which is quite labour-intensive and time-consuming.”
After eliminating potential dangers, workers will dismantle the rubble and structural remnants, sorting and treating different types of waste before recycling can begin.
Dmytro wants to start work in areas that have suffered significant damage but are further from the front line. This applies to Bucha, Hostomel, and Kyiv, as well as parts of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, where Kopach is currently located.
“But we believe that when the war ends, we will have the opportunity to rebuild the entire territory of Ukraine, considering the colossal destruction in cities such as Bakhmut, Mariinka, Kramatorsk, and Mariupol in the Donetsk region.”
He adds that state support will be needed at the legislative level. The construction chief has reached out to other European companies that have experience or equipment for processing ruined buildings and structures.
“Our doors are always open to new technologies,” Dmytro stresses.
Hubert Rahier photograph used for the original article