Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Waste Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

Sustainability assessment of Construction and Demolition Waste

management applied to an Italian case
Silvia Iodice a,c,⇑, Elena Garbarino b, Maria Cerreta c, Davide Tonini b
a
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy
b
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville, Spain
c
University of Naples Federico II, Department of Architecture, Naples, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Construction and Demolition Waste represents a priority stream for the European Union and has a large
Received 1 December 2020 potential for closing the material circulation loop in line with the Circular Economy principles. The pre-
Revised 24 March 2021 sent study focuses on the socio-economic and environmental implications of the management of such
Accepted 11 April 2021
waste in the Campania Region (Italy), with the aim of documenting the benefits of recycling actions
Available online 8 May 2021
and landfill avoidance. By using local primary data, and complementing them with data from literature
and datasets, three scenarios have been investigated: i) Status Quo, i.e., a baseline scenario presenting the
Keywords:
current management of Construction and Demolition Waste in the Region; ii) a Linear Economy scenario,
CDW
Life Cycle Assessment
considering the total flow disposed of in landfill and iii) a Best Practice scenario based on the implemen-
Life Cycle Costing tation of selective demolition practices and increased recycling for the production of high-quality recy-
Land Use cled aggregates. Special attention has been paid to the land use and socio-economic implications
Sustainability Assessment linked to the management of this flow, which are rarely considered. We quantify that, with the imple-
Selective Demolition mentation of best practices, ca. 18 Mkg CO2 -eq. can be saved annually relative to the Status Quo alongside
creating additional 1,000 jobs-eq. and incurring important benefits on land use. The results stress that the
potential environmental and social benefits of selective demolition and best practices are significant, but
the incurred economic costs may hinder their application and the resulting development of more circular
economy actions in the construction sector, highlighting the need for incentives and tools to facilitate this
transition.
Ó 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

1. Introduction Guidelines, proposing improvements in waste identification,

source separation and collection, logistics, processing and quality
Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) is a significant management (European Commission, 2016; European
waste stream in Europe in terms of quantities generated and recy- Commission, 2018). On the same lines, Directive 2008/98/EC estab-
clability potential. CDW accounts for about 25–30% of the total lishes a target to prepare for re-use, recycle or recover a minimum
waste generated in the EU (European Commission, 2019a) and it of 70% (by weight) of non-hazardous CDW by 2020. According to
is therefore considered a priority waste stream also in view of its amendment in 2018, this Directive considers the setting of
the impacts caused by its mismanagement (Duan et al., 2015; new targets for CDW and its material-specific fractions by 2024.
Marzouk and Azab, 2014). The European Commission has recently Moreover, in the framework of the European Green Deal
developed the EU Construction and Demolition Waste Protocol and (European Commission, 2019b), the new Circular Economy Action
Plan considers CDW as a priority stream for closing the material
loop thanks to its potential to produce secondary raw materials
Abbreviations: AoP, Area-of-Protection; CAPEX, Capital Expenditures; CLCC, (European Commission, 2020a), and to the ‘Renovation Wave’
Conventional Life Cycle Costing; CDW, Construction and Demolition Waste; EOLEX, goals (European Commission, 2020b). Against these ambitions, as
End-of-Life Expenditures; FU, Functional Unit; LCA, Life Cycle Assessment; LCC, Life
Cycle Costing; LUC, Land Use Changes; OPEX, Operational Expenditures; RA,
for today considerable efforts are however still necessary to fulfil
Recycled Aggregate; SLCC, Societal Life Cycle Costing. such goals (Kabirifar et al., 2020; López Ruiz et al., 2020). Looking
⇑ Corresponding author at: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), at the Italian context, CDW is classified as ‘special waste’ (Legisla-
Ispra, Italy tive Decree 152/2006) i.e., waste deriving from productive
E-mail address: silvia.iodice@ec.europa.eu (S. Iodice).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.04.031
0956-053X/Ó 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

activities that is managed and disposed of by authorized compa- spatial planning, though without evaluating economic and social
nies. The most recent reports on special waste (Ispra, 2019; Ispra, impacts by means of tools such as Conventional Life Cycle Costing
2020) estimate an annual production of about 40 Mt in the coun- (CLCC) or Societal Life Cycle Costing (SLCC). Economic costs were
try. Specifically, in the Region Campania, focus of the present instead evaluated in Di Maria et al. (2018), where a combined
study, about 2.9 Mt are generated annually representing ca 40% LCA and LCC methodology is used to assess the environmental
of the total generated waste in the Region. In the past, landfilling and economic implications of four different CDW scenarios and
was a usual practice when dealing with inert waste (Blengini and Di Maria et al. (2020) where, through a combination of economic
Garbarino, 2010), but recently, alternative options have been and environmental results, policy makers are supported in the
explored to valorise this stream. Notably, CDW can be turned into implementation of new CDW recycling opportunities. Yet, a
secondary raw materials known as Recycled Aggregates (RAs) fol- zoom-in on land use and social aspects is missing.
lowing appropriate recycling processes (Blengini and Garbarino, Having this in mind, the current study is aimed at presenting
2010; Badino et al., 2007; Borghi et al., 2018; Silvaet al., 2014). the results of a sustainability assessment of the CDW management
To this aim, they need to follow construction product standards in the Campania Region (Italy) (Fig. 1a). This assessment has been
(such as EN 12,620 Aggregates for concrete or EN 13,242 – Aggre- carried out by using a multidimensional sustainability framework,
gates for unbound and hydraulically bound materials for use in which covers the socio-economic and environmental pillars as
civil engineering work and road) and some specific requirements defined in Taelman et al. (2020) (Fig. 1b) and is based on local
(e.g. attachments to the Italian Ministerial Communication n. stakeholder priorities. We further complemented the analysis with
5205/2005). According to Blengini and Garbarino (2010) and a SLCC including externality costs and land use impacts in order to
Borghi et al. (2018), and greatly in line with the above- show a broader picture of the CDW management consequences. To
mentioned Communication, the following main categories of RAs this aim: i) we collected local primary data on CDW composition,
have been identified: i) type A: considered as a high-quality mate- flows and treatment technologies in terms of input–output data
rial, with structural properties able for concrete production and on material flows, energy use and emissions. These primary data
road foundations; ii) type B: a medium quality material used for have been complemented with Ecoinvent 3.6 datasets and recent
road, airport and harbour construction as well as unbound material literature sources; ii) we designed and compared three scenarios
in the embankment body, in sub-base layers and in layers with to recommend sustainable solutions for the local management of
anti-freezing, anti-capillary and drainage properties; iii) type C: a CDW, which are widely applicable beyond this local context; iii)
lower quality material, used for environmental fillings and rehabil- we strengthened the assessment through an uncertainty propaga-
itation of depleted quarries and landfill sites. tion analysis, based on recent developments in the field (Bisinella
Many studies investigated the impacts related to CDW manage- et al., 2016).
ment strategies. In most of the cases, the Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) methodology has been used. This happens in the study by 2. Materials and methods
Li et al. (2020) and Mercante et al. (2012), where LCA is used to
assess the environmental impacts of CDW in specific case studies, 2.1. Case study
or in the evaluation performed by Butera et al. (2015) aimed at
comparing the best possible use of secondary raw materials. The focus area selected for the analysis is represented by the
Yazdanbakhsh (2018) proposed a LCA framework for modelling Campania Region, Italy (Fig. 1a; 5.8 million inhabitants;
alternative waste management approaches, while Coelho and de 13,671 km2; 2.9 Mt/year of CDW generated). CDW is managed in
Brito (2010) applied the LCA to the whole life cycle of a building, the Campania Region following the indications and objectives of
beyond the waste management phase. Most of these studies the Regional Plan for the management of special waste (2012).
focused on the production of Recycled Aggregates (RAs) (Zhang Some of these indications have been addressed in the present anal-
et al., 2020). In this context, it is worth mentioning the analysis ysis, particularly to what concerns ensuring the self-sufficiency
performed by Blengini and Garbarino (2010), who developed a and the environmental and economic sustainability of an inte-
combined Geographic Information System and LCA model to grated and coordinated management system, by minimizing its
understand the potentialities of RAs helping the transition towards impact on human health and the environment alongside the social
a sustainable supply mix of natural and recycled resources. (Borghi and economic costs.
et al., 2018) focused on the relationship between mixed non-
hazardous CDW and the production of medium and low-quality 2.2. Scope and functional unit
RAs, to understand how to improve the production of high-
quality secondary raw materials. The authors provided general rec- The goal of the study is to evaluate the sustainability of a few
ommendations to enhance the performance of the system from an scenarios for CDW management. The Functional Unit (FU) is the
environmental point of view. management of 1 t of CDW generated in the Campania Region
All in all, reviewing the available literature, we observed that (Italy), where the annual generation equals 2.9 Mt (wet weight)
very few studies focused on the socio-economic and land use (Ispra, 2017; Ispra, 2018). CDW is generated along the life cycle
impacts of CDW management, especially in relation to selective of a building or infrastructure, including construction and demoli-
demolition and best practices. Only Pantini and Rigamonti tion activities, micro renovations carried out independently or
(2020), that we are aware of, analysed and compared with LCA other activities dealing with construction materials. The material
selective demolition versus traditional, showing how the benefits fraction composition of CDW depends on the applied demolition
are strictly linked to the characteristics of buildings and the RAs practices (see section 3.1). We consider current technologies and
local market. Wang et al. (2019), while dealing with the introduc- the Italian energy system as expected for the period 2020–2030
tion of a waste management fee, introduced the possibility of (Keramidas et al., 2021).
involving the civil society in decision-making. Both studies only The assessment was facilitated with the software EASETECH
address the environmental issues, and a multidimensional per- (Clavreul et al., 2014) and a consequential approach was applied.
spective is missing. As for the land use impacts, the only study This approach is aimed at describing the effects of changes within
we found is the one of Bidstrup et al. (2015), who proposed an inte- the life cycle (Ekvall, 2002) due to modifications of the life-cycle
gration between LCA and Strategic Environmental Assessment. The inventory determining chains of cause-effect relationships
authors quantified LUC and showed the usefulness of LCA for (Curran et al., 2005; Zamagni et al., 2012).
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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Fig. 1. Illustration of a) Campania Region (Italy; focus area of the assessment), b) the sustainability framework as applied in the study (20 multidimensional indicators
covering 5 Areas-of-Protection at the end-point level, based on Taelman et al., 2020). AoP: Area-of-Protection, c) CDW flows distribution in the scenario Status Quo (black),
where traditional demolition is applied, and Best Practices (green), where selective demolition and increased recycling are assumed to be applied. RA: Recycling Aggregates.
(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

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2.3. Sustainability assessment framework The local indicator ‘Total Employment’ refers to the number of
jobs created in the foreground system with reference to the
The assessment applies the sustainability framework developed assessed activity. The indicator is calculated through the ratio
in Taelman et al. (2020), encompassing five areas-of-protection between the number of employees and the FU. As regards ‘Urban
(AoPs) at the endpoint level and selecting a total of 20 different Space Consumption’ indicator, it considers the urban space used
environmental, social, and economic indicators at midpoint level by the Waste Management facilities compared to the total surface
among those originally established in the framework (Fig. 1b). of the Region under study. In the case of ‘Private Space Consump-
The framework also proposes a final ranking of the scenarios at tion’, this indicator has not been included in the analysis of CDW,
the AoPs level, through the application of the ELECTRE II Multi- since in general the management of this flow does not involve
Criteria method (Figueira et al., 2005) after min–max normalisa- the use of private spaces.
tion (rescaling of the characterised results) and weighting of the
impact categories following stakeholder’s priorities. This approach 2.3.2. Prosperity (economic) indicators: CAPEX, OPEX, EOLEX,
was chosen instead of applying normalisation references and REVENUES
weights to derive a single score because of the lack of normalisa- OPEX refers to the operational costs linked to the CDW manage-
tion references for most of the socio-economic indicators. We ment (€/FU), CAPEX assesses the total costs to acquire, maintain or
report hereafter a brief description of the socio-economic indica- upgrade the physical assets of a waste management system (€/FU),
tors only. For more details on how this framework was built, on EOLEX considers the costs to dismantle facilities (€/FU) and REV-
the two-stages participatory process set up for selecting the indica- ENUES considers the revenues coming from the sales of products.
tors and on the model developed for the MCDA application, the For the specific description of the assessed indicators, see the SI
reader is referred to Taelman et al. (2020) and Tonini et al. (2018). of this paper or of Taelman et al. (2020).

2.4. Scenarios assessed

2.3.1. Human well-being (social) indicators
Disamenities, reflecting an unpleasant character, comprise The analysed waste streams comprise direct flows, directly sent
visual impacts and other negative aspects due to the presence of to treatment plants, and secondary ones, which are related to the
waste treatment plants, such as noise and odours. In general, they intermediate management operations in the temporary storage
are calculated through the Hedonic Price Method (HPM) (Rosen, facilities before landfilling (Fig. 1c).
1974), which assesses how and to what extent a certain factor To support the decision-making for CDW management and Eco-
can affect market prices of buildings. It is indeed demonstrated Innovative Solutions selection (Garzilli et al., 2020), we designed
that the house price decreases as the distance between the house and assessed three scenarios relevant to the focus area: first, a Lin-
and the disamenity increases, reaching zero at a defined distance. ear Economy scenario to illustrate the benefits of avoiding landfill-
The application of this methodology allows to include in the sus- ing, based on the hypothesis of entirely disposing of the CDW flow
tainability framework local disamenities-related impacts, consid- in landfill. Second, we considered the environmental, social, and
ering the variation in property prices at different distance ranges economic impacts associated with the current CDW management
(0–1 Km, 1–2 Km, 2–3 Km, 3–4 Km, 4–5 Km) until a maximum dis- in the Region (Status Quo scenario), based on the implementation
tance beyond which WM facilities do not affect market prices any- of the following plants:
more. If it is possible to obtain information on the market values as i) Stationary recycling plants, which treat the CDW inert frac-
well as on some characteristics of the properties (for example: size, tions for producing RAs. These plants usually show a higher level
typology and people living), it can be applied a linear regression, as of technology than the mobile ones, including sorting equipment
proposed by Rivas Casado et al. (2017). In the absence of informa- for the separation of unwanted fractions (Blengini and Garbarino,
tion on the characteristics of housing, a simplified formula pro- 2010). Stationary plants produce high, medium and low-quality
posed by European Commission (2014) can be applied. According RAs (type A, B and C, respectively). Through a survey to the main
to European Commission (2014), the result is a negative impact stationary plants located in the Campania Region, the rate of pro-
represented by a fixed amount that does not change with the duction of the three RA types has been estimated to 17% for
amount of waste that is disposed of or treated. Therefore, dis- high-quality RAs (type A), 59% for medium-quality RAs (type B)
amenity costs represent a fixed externality, but it can be repre- and 24% for low-quality RAs (type C). Details on the respondents
sented as a cost per tonne of waste for a specific necessity such are provided in Table S3 (SI).
as that of comparing different scenarios. Details on the calculation ii) Mobile recycling plants usually treat smaller CDW quantities
of the ‘Landscape Disamenities’ indicator for the present case study in temporary demolition worksites and use basic technologies.
are provided in Tables S6a-S6b (SI). Alongside Landscape Mobile plants typically produce low-quality RAs (type C)
Disamenities, another significant micro impact affecting ‘Human (Blengini and Garbarino, 2010).
Well-Being’ is represented by ‘Odour’, in terms of odour footprint iii) Recycling plants that treat the other recyclable fractions in
calculated using linear midpoint characterization factors based the CDW stream (such as plastic, metals, glass, wood and insula-
on the potential malodorous air generated by the compound tion materials).
released to the atmosphere. iv) Landfills for disposing of the non-recyclable CDW fraction,
‘Occupational Health’ indicator is related to the assessment of which are mainly located outside the Region.
working conditions with reference to safety and it is calculated v) A minor flow sent to Chemical-Physical-Biological plants for
using the ratio between the total labour and a place-based acci- treating the small humid fraction, for which only transport was
dents rate that includes fatal and non-fatal accidents (Table S7, modelled. While emissions and leachate generation can be consid-
SI). Accidents rates in the waste management sector (including a ered negligible, we accounted for the emissions coming from the
distinction between accidents involving or not a means of trans- consumption of energy, land use and infrastructure (Penteado
portation) are retrieved from the open data available from the and Rosado, 2015).
National Institute for insurance against accidents at work and data Third, we developed a Best Practice scenario to quantify the
on the number of employees in the waste management sector are potential savings achieved applying advanced demolition and
retrieved from the open data available from the National Institute treatment techniques, to the aim of increasing material recovery
of Statistics. Further details are available in SI, section 7. and recycling. This scenario is based on the following assumptions:
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i) Systematic application of selective demolition, also known as uncertainty range as suggested in Bisinella et al. (2016). A range
‘construction in reverse’ or ‘deconstruction’ (Pantini and of ± 20% around the default value has been assumed for most of
Rigamonti, 2020). This type of demolition remains rarely applied the parameters (around 60% of total parameters). For the remain-
but holds a great potential. The difference with the traditional ing parameters, specific variations have been identified using local
demolition lies in the separation of waste at the place of generation data, literature or guess-estimates. In particular, transport param-
thanks to a sequence of demolition activities, which allows sepa- eters have been varied according to the maximum distance that
rating and sorting building components and materials (Pantini can be travelled from the Campania Region to the most distant Ital-
and Rigamonti, 2020). This increases the capture rate and quality ian Regions in which CDW is treated. Finally, for the most uncer-
of waste (i.e. overall recyclability). Details on the economic and tain parameters, for which it was not possible to obtain primary
environmental inventory used for modelling selective and tradi- data (especially as regards the economic parameters in terms of
tional demolition are available in Table S4e of the SI. Labour, OPEX, CAPEX and REVENUES), a wider variation oscillating
ii) Increased production of high-quality RAs (type A), which can between ± 50% and ± 100% was applied. CAPEX of stationary recy-
be used in low-strength structural concrete. This is considered an cling plants and landfills are affected by the land acquisition value,
important contribution to close construction materials cycles, as which varies according to the land use on which the plant is
it decreases the amount of residual CDW to be managed, increases installed (between 2 €/m2 for agricultural land, used as minimum
the economic value of the recycled component and reduces the value for the uncertainty, and 150 €/m2 for commercial land, estab-
quantity of Natural Aggregates (NAs) used, as also explained in lished as maximum value); for landfill the agricultural land value is
Di Maria et al. (2018) and Penteado and Rosado (2015). assumed. For mobile recycling plants, OPEX includes the land rent
value, for which the minimum and maximum values are estab-
2.5. System boundary lished through a market research (3,600–7,848 €/year). Further
information is available in the SI (section 4).
The system boundary includes all the activities in the waste
management life cycle, i.e. collection, transport, treatment, trans-
3. Inventory data
portation of treated residues and/or products to end-use or further
applications, and possible final landfilling. Furthermore, the sec-
To describe the foreground system, we used official primary
ondary raw materials generated through the CDW recycling are
data provided by the environmental regional agency of the Campa-
credited through system expansion, by substituting the correspon-
nia Region (reference year: 2015). This included local primary data
dent market products. Particularly, the modelling strives to
on: i) CDW composition, ii) CDW flows (i.e. share to landfilling,
account for the impacts related to the substitution of NAs from
recycling, etc.; Table S2, SI), iii) energy, electricity, material, fuels
quarrying activities with RAs, in order to quantify the avoided
and resource provision, iv) local data on accidents rates
social, economic and environmental impacts. This can ultimately
(Table S7, SI), land occupation of facilities, quarries and containers
lead to a gradual reduction of the extractive activities. This way,
(Table S5a of the SI). Complementary background data for mod-
the impacts related to the production of RAs are compared to the
elling waste treatment technologies (e.g. input–output data related
ones related to the production of NAs from limestone quarries in
to material, energy use and emissions) were taken from Ecoinvent
the Campania Region to account for the avoided extraction of
centre 3.6 (Ecoinvent centre, 2019). Transport distances were cal-
raw materials. For the substitution of NAs with RAs, replacement
culated as a weighted sum from the centroid of the Campania
coefficients considering the quality of RAs and their market
Region to the centroid of the receiving Italian Regions, also by
demand (as proposed by Borghi et al., 2018) have been applied:
using a Geographic Information System.
R = Q1 * Q2 * M
Where Q1 is the quality in terms of purity of the flow, while Q2
is linked to the technical characteristics of RAs compared to those 3.1. Material composition, flows and quantity
of the substituted material. Finally, M is the market coefficient, i.e.
the ratio between the amount of RAs sold and produced in a recy- The material fraction composition of CDW currently reported
cling plant in a defined period. M usually varies between 0 and 1, by ARPAC and Ispra (2017) refers to flows originating from tradi-
according to the market attractiveness. For the present case study, tional demolition practices (see Section 3.2). This composition
it is set equal to 1, assuming a time horizon in which all the pro- was derived from primary data and aggregated according to
duced RAs are used and satisfy the market demand. The replace- macro-categories. For this study, we also estimated the material
ment coefficients resulted equal to 1, 0.97 and 0.86, for RAs of flows that would potentially originate from selective demolition
type A, B, and C accordingly. Other important substitutions occur practices. The chemical composition has been approximated with
between recycled plastic, glass, wood, and insulation materials selected material fractions from the EASETECH database (Butera
and the corresponding raw materials available on the market. et al., 2015; Clavreul et al., 2014).
We excluded metal components from the analysis, assuming that
they are typically separated at source and sent to recycling. Indeed, 3.2. Traditional versus selective demolition practices: Material flows
a large amount of metals is selectively separated during demolition
by means of mechanical equipment and does not enter the CDW The CDW streams generated with the current demolition prac-
flow to be further treated. As far as the material substitutions are tices is detailed in Fig. 2a and Table S1a (SI), quantified based on
concerned, sorting and recycling efficiencies developed in Pantini the NACE 41, 42, 43 codes elaboration, also considering the possi-
and Rigamonti (2020) and Faraca et al. (2019) have been adopted bility that economic activities, other than the construction ones,
(sorting rates were 47% for wood, 72% for insulation and plastic can produce CDW, and is based on the elaboration of the European
and 57% for glass respectively). Waste Catalogue (EWC) code 17.
A new composition has been estimated using literature refer-
2.6. Uncertainty analysis ences, in particular the elaboration from Metabolic (2020) and
Lavagna et al. (2018) that specify the material content breakdown
An uncertainty analysis based on the propagation of the param- for buildings to define the potential recovery rate of each fraction
eter uncertainty on the results through a Montecarlo simulation when applying selective demolition. Lavagna et al. (2018) consider
has been applied, using a triangular distribution to represent the 24 different dwelling archetypes selected to be as much represen-
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Fig. 2. Illustration of a) Material composition of the Status Quo, b) Material composition of the Best Practice scenario.

tative as possible of the existing building types in Europe, while the data have been collected in relation to the limestone quarries in
analysis performed by Metabolic (2020) focus on residential and the Campania Region (SI, Section 5).
commercial buildings in The Netherlands. Following these refer-
ences, a new composition is detailed in Fig. 2a and Table S1b (SI). 3.4. Waste technologies and costs
Notably, it is possible to observe the increase in the share of the
stones and concrete fraction, which then allows an increase in The life cycle inventory for each waste treatment technology
the production of high-quality RAs. The max recovery of the stones was compiled based on information from various sources (SI, sec-
and concrete fraction via selective demolition is estimated up to ca. tion 2). With respect to the calculation of the annualised CAPEX
53%, allowing an increased production of high-quality RAs from ca. (capital expenditures expressed as cost per tonne of feedstock trea-
17% (traditional demolition) to ca. 53%. See additional details on ted), OPEX (operational expenditures, as cost per tonne of feed-
material fractions in SI, section 1. Other significant changes refer stock treated) and externalities (environmental price of the
to the composition of plastic, insulation materials, wood, and glass. emissions),we conformed to the calculation method widely used
Selective demolition also implies different electricity and diesel in recent studies focusing on waste economics (Hunkeler et al.,
consumptions, as well as different labour costs. We estimated 2008; Martinez-Sanchez et al., 2015; Martinez-Sanchez et al.,
energy consumptions and labour costs based on Pantini and 2016). To represent externalities, the shadow prices of the environ-
Rigamonti (2020) and Coelho and De Brito (2013). The electricity mental emissions as reported in de Bruyn et al. (2017) were used.
and diesel consumptions for traditional demolition were 0.1 The revenues were derived based on the current market prices for
kWh/t and 1.8 MJ/t, respectively, against 1.6 kWh/t and 2.8 MJ/t recycled material, e.g. recycled aggregates. Last, the total employ-
for selective demolition. The labour costs were estimated based ment was derived knowing the labour input to the individual pro-
on the study performed by Coelho and De Brito (2010)) as 1.2 €/t cesses or technologies throughout the foreground system assessed.
and 6.2 €/t for traditional and selective demolition, respectively.
The authors in their study considered townhouses of 100 m2 and
similar patterns are also confirmed by other studies, which con- 4. Results
sider different construction typologies (Dantata et al, 2005) or dif-
ferent databases (Vázquez-López et al., 2020). The breakdown of the midpoint impacts is displayed for the 20
indicators grouped according to five individual AoPs (Fig. 3-to-7).
Herein the key differences between the Linear Economy, Best Prac-
tice and Status Quo scenarios are outlined, whereas for a detailed
3.3. Land use and land use change (LUC) description of the results the reader is referred to section 4.1-to-
4.3. Overall, in the Status Quo the CDW management resulted in
Land use refers to the human activities carried out in a certain a net impact in most of the environmental categories, i.e. the sav-
land cover. Therefore, it concerns the functional dimension and ings determined by recycling operations were not enough to com-
the socio-economic activities that characterise a certain area. pensate for the burdens incurred by management and treatment
Land use is divided into two categories: ‘land occupation’ and processes. Yet, this scenario performed better than the Linear Econ-
‘land transformation’. The first one refers to the continuous use omy, used here for benchmarking and quantifying the benefits aris-
of an area for a certain human activity, while the second one rep- ing from avoiding landfilling. Relative to both, the Best Practice
resents a change in use or management of soil caused by human scenario showed overall lower impacts and/or net savings albeit
action, referring to the change from one category of land use to this was not the case in the AoP Prosperity, where higher total
another. In this regard, direct land use change (dLUC) represents costs (sum of OPEX, CAPEX, EOLEX, and REVENUES) were incurred
the transformation caused directly by the expansion of a certain notwithstanding the increased revenues generated from material
land use activity and indirect land use change (iLUC) represents recycling. With respect to the breakdown of the individual impact
the transformation caused indirectly from the competitive use of contributions, CDW treatment and transport originated the main
the land, beyond the borders of the system studied and which is burdens, while the most important contributions to the savings
attributable to the system studied. For each considered treatment came from the substitution of conventional market products and
plants, the evolution of land use in relation to the life cycle of soil associated processing (the recyclable materials and the avoided
was analysed, considering land transformations and land occupa- extraction of raw materials from quarries), avoided transport and
tions. Furthermore, site-specific land- use and land use-change LUCs.
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Fig. 3. Disaggregated life-cycle results for the Area-of-Protection ecosystem health. (FU: management of 1 t CDW). Positive values indicate burdens, while negative indicate
savings. Plants operations: all activities involving material recycling (aggregates, wood, plastic, etc.); Material substitution: credits from replacement of virgin materials;
Transportation: impacts related to transport of CDW flow to the management facilities and transport of RAs to the construction sites; Avoided transportation: saving related
to avoided NAs transportation from quarry sites to plant facilities; LUCs induced: impacts due to land occupation, land transformation and land use changes (both direct and
indirect); LUCs avoided: avoided land occupation, transformation and land use changes due to the reduction of mining activities from quarries; Disposal: all the impacts
incurred by landfilling operations; Demolition: impacts coming from the process of demolition (both traditional and selective). Total represents the sum of all contributions.
The uncertainty bar represents plus minus one standard deviation.

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4.1. Environmental and resource-related impacts: Ecosystem Health, 4.4. Aggregation: Societal Life Cycle Costing & Multi-Criteria Decision
Human Health, and Natural Resources Analysis

In the AoP Ecosystem Health, the Best Practice scenario per- Applying the MCDA technique proposed in Taelman et al.
formed best in all categories except for Water Use and the Status (2020) we obtained that Best Practice ranked first under all AoPs,
Quo was always better than the Linear Economy (Fig. 3). This was except for Prosperity due to the increased operational costs
mainly due to the increased savings from material substitution (Fig. 8d). Under Prosperity, the Status Quo scored best. The Linear
thanks to the recycling operations. It should be noticed that trans- Economy scenario was the worst in 3 out of 5 AoPs (Human Health,
portation was also a major contribution to the burdens especially Natural Resources and Human Well-Being) and scored comparable
for Global Warming (Fig. 3a), Eutrophication (both marine and to the Status Quo in Ecosystem Health. (Fig. 8d). In terms of conven-
freshwater; Fig. 3c,d) and Water Use (Fig. 3f), mainly owing to tional costs (CLCC), we observe an increased CDW management
the emissions of CO2 and NOx, and to water consumptions for die- cost moving from linear to more circular scenarios (Fig. 8a). The
sel–fuel production. While LUCs were accounted for across all cat- total CLCC was 134 €/t for Status Quo and 205 €/t for the scenario
egories, they resulted a non-negligible contribution only for the Best Practice. The increase was mainly due to higher recycling costs
Land Use category (Fig. 3e). and especially higher costs for selective demolition, compared with
A similar pattern was observed for the AoP Human Health the costs incurred with traditional demolition, moving from 26 €/t
(Fig. 4). While in the energy-related categories the scenario Best to 126 €/t. A similar pattern can be observed in the SLCC results, as
Practice was always preferred because of increased savings from the contribution of the external costs to the total societal cost was
material substitution, reduced transportation and LUCs owing to limited (around –1 to + 4 €/t).
increased recycling (Fig. 4a-to-h), the savings in the toxicity cate-
gories (Fig. 4e,f) were mainly related to reduced disposal of mate-
rials in landfill and avoided transportation of natural aggregates. 5. Learnings and recommendations
This was also the case for the AoP Natural Resources, where
increased recycling and substitution of virgin material compen- 5.1. Potential benefits of selective demolition and policy instruments
sated for the fuel and energy expenses incurred by the technolo- needed
gies involved in the CDW treatment (Fig. 5). As for the
uncertainty bar, it can be observed that the scenarios Status Quo In EU, selective demolition practices, even if not widespread yet,
and Best Practice largely overlapped in Global Warming, Water could help increasing the waste quality and purity, enhancing the
Use and Fossil Depletion. CDW diversion from landfill and reducing further land use con-
sumption. Land is becoming an ever-increasing scarce resource
(Munafò, 2019) and the avoided landfilling of demolition waste
represents a very important environmental benefit (Blengini,
4.2. Social impacts: Human Well-being 2009), alongside the reduced quarrying activity. Currently, the
inert fraction represents a significant portion of CDW in many
In the AoP Human Well-being, the Best Practice scenario per- European Member States. It includes concrete, stones, bricks, tiles
formed best in all categories except for Odour (Fig. 6b) and Occu- and ceramics and represents 20–70% of the total CDW flow
pational Health (Fig. 6e), while for Landscape Disamenities, the (Deloitte, 2017). The systematic application of selective demolition
performance was comparable to the Status Quo. The Status Quo can help increasing the breakdown of this fraction in well-
was always better than the Linear Economy (Fig. 6), except for the separated material-specific streams that can be used to boost the
category Urban Space Consumption (Fig. 6a). Notably, the Best production of high-quality RAs. Selective demolition would also
Practice scenario achieved the best score in Total Employment help increasing the recycling of plastic, insulation (e.g. EPS or
(Fig. 6d) and in the Urban Space Consumption category, thanks PUR) and wood. On top, metals are already usually separated and
to the increased number of treatments/operations involved recycled. To facilitate the implementation of selective demolition,
(mainly recycling) and to the avoided land use impacts connected it is essential to start from the building construction phase, encour-
to such activities. It should be noticed that transportation was aging design for disassembly (Cristiano et al., 2021). Furthermore,
again a major contribution to the burdens, especially for the cate- for the purpose of overcoming the difficulty linked to the data col-
gory Odour (Fig. 6b) and Total Employment (Fig. 6d). As for the lection phase, which saw us forced to interview the RAs producers,
uncertainties, the Status Quo and the Linear Economy scenarios lar- it would be appropriate to allow greater data transparency and
gely overlapped in the categories represented by Odour and Land- traceability not only in the CDW generation and management
scape Disamenities. phases, but also in the RAs production and final destination
(Cristiano et al., 2021).
Our study shows that, while the potential environmental bene-
fits of selective demolition are significant, the high economic costs
4.3. Economic impacts: Prosperity may hinder its application and the resulting development of more
circular economy actions in the construction sector. In view of this,
In the AoP Prosperity (Fig. 7) we observed a trade-off (OPEX; a mixed combination of different tools may be envisaged to sup-
Fig. 7b) relative to the previous results: the scenario Best Practice port a development in such direction, especially in terms of new
incurred the highest OPEX due to the increased costs for selective policies, regulations and economic incentives and subsidies that
demolition and recycling operations. As far as CAPEX is concerned, might stimulate the development of a strong and competitive
the Best Practice and the Status Quo scenarios had a comparable secondary-materials market for RAs (Wahlström et al., 2020). The
cost, but both were cheaper than the Linear Economy scenario first solution could be represented by introducing specific recycling
(Fig. 6a). The Best Practice also achieved the highest revenues targets for selective construction materials in place of those on the
(Fig. 7d), while EOLEX were comparable to the Status Quo and overall mass recycled, which may favour low quality recycling (e.g.
lower than the Linear Economy (Fig. 7c). Comparable uncertainty of low-quality mixed aggregates for backfilling or environmental
ranges were observed across all scenarios and categories; rankings restoration projects). Considering the setting of appropriate
were not affected by the uncertainties. material-based recycling rates to be reached by a certain year
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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Fig. 4. Disaggregated life-cycle results for the Area-of-Protection human health. (FU: management of 1 t CDW). Positive values indicate burdens, while negative indicate
savings. Plants operations: all activities involving material recycling (aggregates, wood, plastic, etc.); Material substitution: credits from replacement of virgin materials;
Transportation: impacts related to transport of CDW flow to the management facilities and transport of RAs to the construction sites; Avoided transportation: saving related
to avoided NAs transportation from quarry sites to plant facilities; LUCs induced: impacts due to land occupation, land transformation and land use changes (both direct and
indirect); LUCs avoided: avoided land occupation, transformation and land use changes due to the reduction of mining activities from quarries; Disposal: all the impacts
incurred by landfilling operations; Demolition: impacts coming from the process of demolition (both traditional and selective). Total represents the sum of all contributions.
The uncertainty bar represents plus minus one standard deviation.
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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

often employed in low quality applications or is downcycled.

Higher-quality applications need to be fostered (European
Commission, 2020a; Wahlström et al., 2020), also by considering
additional measures such as setting (the above-mentioned) targets
for CDW material-specific fractions. To analyse the potential for
these fraction recycling and to build robust forecasts, a study is
currently ongoing on the European building stock. Indeed, accord-
ing to Enkvist and Klevnäs (2018) and to Rose and Stegemann
(2018), about 1% of EU buildings are renovated each year and
new buildings are added (0.5–1.5% of the total stock) and signifi-
cant renovations are expected in a close future, considering that
about 45% of buildings are older than 50 years (Enkvist and
Klevnäs, 2018). Building stock can be thus considered a major
source of material-specific fractions and then if properly managed,
can contribute significantly to the objectives of the Circular Econ-
omy Action Plan.
Another important instrument to foster increased and better
waste recycling is the inclusion of recycled content criteria, partic-
ularly for RAs, in Green Public Procurements, both as technical
specifications or award criteria. Furthermore, a regional sustain-
ability certification for RAs can be promoted and higher disposal
taxes could be inserted. Increasing landfilling charges and penal-
ties for illegal mining activities and limestone sales could indeed
foster the higher development of RAs (Cristiano et al., 2021).
To be accepted and used at the construction site, RAs need to
comply with specific technical and environmental requirements.
Currently, different factors hinder a more widespread use of RAs,
such as the distrust of some construction companies against recy-
cled materials due to their origin from waste (Wahlström, 2020) or
Fig. 5. Disaggregated life-cycle results for the Area-of-Protection natural resources. the lack of knowledge on their technical performances, but also the
(FU: management of 1 t CDW). Positive values indicate burdens, while negative low cost and the great availability of virgin materials at local level.
indicate savings. Plants operations: all activities involving material recycling
(aggregates, wood, plastic, etc.); Material substitution: credits from replacement
For example, the quarrying activity in the Campania Region is
of virgin materials; Transportation: impacts related to transport of CDW flow to the intense and characterized by an ever-increasing number of extrac-
management facilities and transport of RAs to the construction sites; Avoided tion sites (Legambiente, 2017). It would, therefore, be necessary to
transportation: saving related to avoided NAs transportation from quarry sites to encourage the use of RAs by making operational some regulatory
plant facilities; LUCs induced: impacts due to land occupation, land transformation
instruments that require the use of a minimum amount of recycled
and land use changes (both direct and indirect); LUCs avoided: avoided land
occupation, transformation and land use changes due to the reduction of mining content in public works (e.g. in Italy, the DM 203/2003 requires a
activities from quarries; Disposal: all the impacts incurred by landfilling operations; minimum recycled content of 30%). It is also important to share
Demolition: impacts coming from the process of demolition (both traditional and information on the technical performances of RAs to improve the
selective). Total represents the sum of all contributions. The uncertainty bar general awareness (Borghi et al., 2018), involving stakeholders in
represents plus minus one standard deviation.
the development standards for secondary raw materials, enhanc-
ing trust and credibility (European Environment Agency, 2019).
In this sense, RAs can complement NAs in a sustainable supply
(e.g. 2030) and preparing for re-use and recycling targets for CDW mix for the construction industry, i.e. a procurement from multiple
(and its material-specific fractions) are already envisioned by Arti- sources, according to criteria of economic, environmental and
cle 11(6) of the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC social efficiency (Garbarino and Blengini, 2013). Enhancing the
as modified by Directive (EU) 2018/851). According to the global direct involvement of NAs production facilities in the RAs produc-
material stock and flow model for residential and service sector tion chain could be an added value to promote the higher diffusion
buildings towards 2050 developed by Deetman et al. (2020), the of RAs on the market, avoiding competition (Cristiano et al., 2021).
demand for construction materials seems continuing to globally Moreover, according to the Regional Plan for mining activities
increase (with estimated global projections of e.g. 31% for steel (2006), the number of quarries needs to be progressively reduced,
and 14% for cement compared to today according to their model) also considering the deterioration and the biodiversity and land
and closing the loop with high quality recycled materials appears use losses at local level, going towards the restoration and re-
unrealistic before the year 2050. Furthermore, Deetman et al. naturalisation of exhausted quarries. Lastly, landscape disameni-
(2020) pointed out the important role played by the service sector ties and land use changes could be considered to correct the mar-
buildings, because they may use certain materials at higher mate- ket for the negative externalities incurred by these activities.
rial intensity and they have a shorter average lifetime than resi-
dential buildings. Targeting these considerations to Europe 5.2. Advances and limitations of the study
appears paramount. CDW represents 25–30% of total waste vol-
umes in Europe with a quite constant generation since 2010 Striving to fill the gaps emerged with the initial literature
(European Commission, 2019a; Enkvist and Klevnäs, 2018; review, related to assessment of costing, land use, and selective
Wahlström et al. 2020). Anyhow, reliability of statistics on CDW demolition impacts, we assessed the economic, social, and envi-
varies among Member States and some improvements appear ronmental pillars linked to the management of CDW in a selected
needed (Deloitte, 2017; Wahlström et al., 2020). Despite most Italian Region (Campania) considering the priorities of local stake-
Member States have already met the recycle/recovery minimum holders. This sustainability assessment of CDW management is the
target of 70% of non-hazardous CDW by 2020, recycled CDW is first of its kind, as previous studies focused on the environmental
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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Fig. 6. Disaggregated life-cycle results for the Area-of-Protection human well-being (FU: management of 1 t CDW). Positive values indicate burdens, while negative indicate
savings. Plants operations: all activities involving material recycling (aggregates, wood, plastic, etc.); Material substitution: credits from replacement of virgin materials;
Transportation: impacts related to transport of CDW flow to the management facilities and transport of RAs to the construction sites; Avoided transportation: saving related
to avoided NAs transportation from quarry sites to plant facilities; LUCs induced: impacts due to land occupation, land transformation and land use changes (both direct and
indirect); LUCs avoided: avoided land occupation, transformation and land use changes due to the reduction of mining activities from quarries; Disposal: all the impacts
incurred by landfilling operations; Demolition: impacts coming from the process of demolition (both traditional and selective). Total represents the sum of all contributions.
The uncertainty bar represents plus minus one standard deviation.

93
S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Fig. 7. Disaggregated life-cycle results for the Area-of-Protection prosperity (FU: management of 1 t CDW). Positive values indicate burdens, while negative indicate savings.
Plants operations: all activities involving material recycling (aggregates, wood, plastic, etc.); Material substitution: credits from replacement of virgin materials;
Transportation: impacts related to transport of CDW flow to the management facilities and transport of RAs to the construction sites; Avoided transportation: saving related
to avoided NAs transportation from quarry sites to plant facilities; LUCs induced: impacts due to land occupation, land transformation and land use changes (both direct and
indirect); LUCs avoided: avoided land occupation, transformation and land use changes due to the reduction of mining activities from quarries; Disposal: all the impacts
incurred by landfilling operations; Demolition: impacts coming from the process of demolition (both traditional and selective). Total represents the sum of all contributions.
The uncertainty bar represents plus minus one standard deviation.

dimension (Mercante et al., 2012; Li et al., 2020) or on the eco- incurring higher costs relative to our results because of the more
nomic costs (Di Maria et al., 2020). Similarly, to the proposed expensive landfill tax in the area. Likewise, the results provided
study, Di Maria et al. (2018) combine LCA and LCC to analyse the by Borghi et al. (2018) demonstrate the environmental advantages
environmental and economic impacts of four alternative CDW of landfill avoidance, but the economic and social perspectives are
management scenarios, even if the social component is missing. left behind. Jain et al. (2020) showcase that integrated wet recy-
The environmental result of their study is in line with our results, cling is environmentally sound alternative compared to landfilling
since landfilling shows the highest environmental impacts, while in most of the cases, while Rondinel-Oviedo (2021), after perform-

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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

Fig. 8. Illustration of the results for a) CLCC, b) Externalities c) SLCC, d) MCDA. The uncertainty bar represents plus minus one standard deviation.

ing some surveys and interviews to the main stakeholders, under- we also focused on land use-related impacts that are rarely consid-
line the importance to provide incentives for selective demolition. ered (the only example we found is the study by Bidstrup et al.,
Highlighting the trade-offs between AoPs, notably costs and 2015). We highlight that including such impacts is particularly
environment, alongside including uncertainty propagation, we important for the impact categories of Land Use and Urban Space
produced comprehensive information for policy- and decision- Consumption.
makers as envisioned in the EU impact assessment guidelines for The limitations of the study are related to: i) data on CDW com-
better regulations (European Commission, 2017). In the effort to position as obtained after selective demolition, ii) external costs for
convey a clear message to local stakeholder and decision-makers, LUCs, and iii) quality and expected use of RAs. With respect to the
we performed a final aggregation applying MCDA and SLCC. While first, current available data on CDW composition, i.e. as available
the former proposes a relative ranking of the scenarios assessed from local agencies (ARPA) and scientific-technical studies, are
per each AoP, without compensating between the three pillars the result of the application of traditional demolition practices.
(e.g. social and/or economic costs with environmental impacts), This means that the actual content of selected inert fractions (e.g.
the SLCC instead obtains an aggregated score as sum of budget insulation, wood, gypsum, and concrete and stones), usually rang-
and external costs (expressed as shadow prices) which implies ing between 20 and 70% (Deloitte, 2017), may be underestimated
an inevitable compensation across social, economic, and environ- as a sizeable portion of the waste is typically classified as ‘mixed
mental pillars. It should be observed that the results obtained with CDW’. For our purposes, specific data did not exist, and we had
the two methods are different because the results of the SLCC in to take assumptions based on literature and best-guess estimates;
this study are strongly driven by the conventional costs while we see therefore an urgent need for in-depth studies to improve
externalities have minor impact on the final magnitude. Moreover, the definition of the regional/local CDW composition. Such gap
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S. Iodice, E. Garbarino, M. Cerreta et al. Waste Management 128 (2021) 83–98

could be covered combining top-down building stock modelling Appendix A. Supplementary data
(Metabolic, 2020) with waste characterisation studies ex-post
selective demolition to derive a more detailed material breakdown. Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
As for the second limitation, to describe the impact of LUCs we https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.04.031.
applied the figures proposed in Martinez-Sanchez et al. (2016).
As also discussed in that study, the value used for LUCs and exter-
nal costs of disamenities may underestimate the actual external
cost as this is highly affected by the general uncertainty linked to References
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