Description
In terms of construction wastes recycling, Europe and Belgium are rather in advance compared to the rest
of the world. For a few years, landfills have been disappearing in the country, leading to an increasing
number of wastes to recycle (concrete, metals, plastic wastes, etc). However, polystyrene used in building
and retrieved from demolition sites has still no proper recycling ways in Belgium. In addition, its small
mass but great volume is an issue for transportation. Most of the times, it is used as fuel for electricity
production. Yet, solutions exist to compact and recycle polystyrene in the world. They reduce the amount
of oil needed to transport it and to produce it. This problem is not solved in Belgium for two reasons: First,
small companies do not invest in compacting engines as their polystyrene wastes are not worth the
investment. Second, most of the buildings insulated with polystyrene are not demolished yet, as they are
still recent. This means that the biggest amount of polystyrene wastes to manage is still to come, while
there is no solution in our region to do so. Ideal solution to this social issue is proposed in this work. This
solution is based on the needs of stakeholders that we were able to identify. It makes use of technologies
such as compression and dissolution in order to reduce the volume of expanded polystyrene.
