PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Mineral wool (glass and rock wool) is one of the most common insulating materials, representing about 55% of the EU thermal insulation market, and equivalent to almost 150 million m3. It has been widely used for more than 60 years to provide thermal and acoustic insulation and fire protection for homes, buildings, and industrial processes and facilities.
Mineral wools are Man-Made Vitreous Fibres (MMVF). In the past, MMVF contained a significant proportion of respirable fibres, which are bio-persistent in the lungs and potentially carcinogenic. Technological improvements to remove the respirable fraction from MMVF have been made. However, mineral wool waste from the demolition of old buildings/equipment (mostly considered part of Construction and Demolition Waste – CDW) usually contains a mix of old and new mineral wool products. CDW accounts for more than a third of all waste generated in the EU and, as in the case of exhausted mineral wool, it can contain small amounts of hazardous materials, which impedes its recycling, often leaving landfilling as the main viable option.
Landfilling has a series of well-known environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions), as well as an increasing economic cost. There is also the emerging problem of the gradual saturation of authorised landfills for hazardous waste, and foreign operators are increasingly being pushed to prioritise the disposal of domestic waste instead of importing hazardous waste from other countries.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE ReWo project proposes the introduction of a new circular economy approach aimed at promoting the end-of-waste (EOW) management of mineral wool waste associated with insulation materials consisting of or containing hazardous substances (EWC 170603*).
LIFE ReWo aims to implement and demonstrate a new and patented EOW transformation process based on the thermal treatment of mineral wool waste and its transformation into a secondary raw material (ReWo material), which has a glassy matrix. Following circular economy principles, the ReWo material will be reused as raw material in a variety of production processes, including the production of new mineral wools, ceramic tiles or in the glass industry.
The project’s specific objectives are to:
- Install an innovative treatment plant with oxy-fuel technology and an ad-hoc Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) system.
- Demonstrate and validate the performance and replicability of the recycling plant over a year in a real-life setting scenario, monitoring the efficiency and emissions of the plant.
- Demonstrate the efficiency and the effectiveness of recycling processes for secondary raw materials production, with a minimum target yield of 80% with respect to the amount of waste input.
- Validate the use of ReWo material as a substitute for natural raw materials (i.e., basalt and feldspar), producing new high-value products (i.e., mineral wool products and ceramic tiles), with features equivalent to standard products.
- Provide quantitative data on the overall environmental and socio-economic sustainability of the new plant and its process through life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) analyses. The results will be used to leverage the market deployment of the developed solution whilst also raising awareness among potential end-users of ReWo secondary raw material, policy makers and sectorial associations on the advantages and the feasibility of this new recycling process.
RESULTS
The main expected results from the project are:
- Installation and operation of the innovative plant, with a target of 6,000 tonnes/year (t/y) of mineral wool waste treated (thereby avoiding landfilling), obtaining 5,400 t/y of ReWo material (circularity target).
- Elaboration of a comprehensive exploitation strategy and sustainability planning, with the development of marketing, commercial and business plans to foster the commercialisation of the developed solution.
- Replication of the plant at two other sites in Italy, for a total operating capacity of 18,000 t/y, representing about 45% of the total Italian mineral wool waste production.
- Market introduction of the ReWo material, with target sales of about 4,000 tonnes by the project’s end, increasing to about 16,000 t/y five years after the project’s end.
