ᐅ Develop a recycled construction material made from concrete, plaster, paint, wallpaper, and stone.

Janniklas schrieb:

My intention is nature conservation. Our civilization is currently using raw materials that have already been used before.

As the population continues to grow, the consequence is a rising demand for more houses, buildings, and infrastructure of all kinds. For this reason, the recycling balance doesn’t add up. We will always need more material than what is already available.

Otherwise, there is no need to search for possibilities. The processes exist and are already in use. However, crushed debris is not repurposed into new blocks; instead, it is used in road construction and similar applications, where the same raw materials are required.

It makes much more sense to use demolished buildings as a supporting base rather than extracting new raw materials for that purpose. It would be completely illogical to use fresh, new bricks, for example, and bury them extensively beneath the surface layer. I assume everyone would agree on that. And yes, road construction is necessary. Even the most passionate cyclists are calling for more of it.

The topic of recycling has already reached building material manufacturers. There is a lot of research being done, and some of it has already been incorporated into current products.

The devil is in the details. This involves changed formulations and new production processes. It also includes new certifications and much more. The biggest challenge is that the product price must not increase excessively. Depending on the product, it can quickly run into six figures or more by the time it reaches market readiness!

1. Is there a machine that grinds the material that finely? Standard crushers are not sufficient.
2. The cost of the crushers was so high that transport and recycling, as well as new installation, were cheaper.
3. Hazardous substances are tested starting from 500 cubic meters in Bavaria. The biggest challenge for the demolition contractor was not the cowshed, but the walls from the post-war period. Back then, everything was solidified into stone-like material, which caused the main problem.
Not every landfill accepts every class of hazardous waste. You want to solidify everything.
Building materials must meet standards. This needs to be checked anew for each house (as different rubble is present).
4. Where does the grinding, solidifying, and shaping take place? Transport.

Ecologically, it is best to close building gaps, increase infill development, carefully separate materials during demolition, build as compact as possible, and design outdoor spaces in a natural way.

Janniklas schrieb:

My intention is nature conservation. Our civilization only uses raw materials that have been used before.

Firstly, this doesn’t answer my question whether you are asking this academically or if you are facing a specific demolition project. Secondly, you should look up “Trümmerfrauen” and first build up basic knowledge about recycling (including considering the ecological footprint of the respective methods). The key difference between recycling and downcycling lies in the purity of the materials fed into the process; in this sense, your hoped-for building material suffers from inhomogeneity – it would unfortunately only be recyclable through downcycling with high (including energy) effort at the next stage. Furthermore, because of its poorly defined composition, it could not be entered into U-value calculators and practically could not be used for any building subject to energy efficiency regulations. So it would only be a building material suitable for sheds and detached garages. When looked at more closely, you would get quite the opposite of what you hoped for: solution planned, problem created :-(

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Okay, thanks for the insight into the recycling business. I'll stay away from that and leave it to those who already know how to do it.

Janniklas schrieb:

I’ll stay away from that and let those who know what they’re doing handle it.

That would be a mistake because they won’t follow your approach as you envision it. You can recycle the material during your demolition—that’s why I advised you to search for “Trümmerfrauen” (rubble women)—and you can reuse mortar-free bricks as bricks again, and so on. However, not in a ground and remixed form, since that would be of little use considering your intention.

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