From waste to resource: Italian contribution to the LIFE programme

In the last decade there has been a growing interest in so-called construction and demolition waste. For several years great efforts have been devoted to their recovery mainly from quantitative point of view without considering innovative recovery in terms of quality and performance. Today, however, research is increasingly focusing on solutions aimed at circular design and construction, thinking about the closing of the circle by up-cycling waste. This article analyses the Italian projects that have won the European LIFE programme and are moving in this direction, with the aim of identifying the actions implemented to achieve the objectives proposed by the European Union. It follows that the initial tendency to tackle recycling as the recovery of large quantities of waste, without added value, has turned into greater attention to the innovative reuse of waste, which is increasingly moving in the direction of the circular economy. It can also be found that although this type of approach leads to a lower environmental impact, not all projects tend to explicit and quantify the benefits in terms of limiting consumption and reducing emissions.