The building and construction industry is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, with buildings and their users responsible for almost a quarter of the country’s total emissions.

The energy embodied in existing buildings in Australia is equivalent to ten years of energy consumption for the nation; therefore, the choice of materials and design principles has a significant, but previously unrecognised, impact on the energy required to construct a building. 

Embodied energy is one measure of the environmental impact of construction and of the effectiveness of recycling, particularly for CO2 emissions. The recycling and re-use industry has a major role to play in lowering the embodied impact of buildings.

Building materials account for about half of all materials used and about half the solid waste generated worldwide. A total of 19.0 million tonnes of construction and demolition (C&D) waste was generated in Australia in 2008-09. Of this total waste stream, 8.5 million tonnes were disposed to landfill while 10.5 million tonnes or 55% were recovered and recycled. 

At The Foamex Group, a major challenge in the recycling and re-use of Foamex StyroPod waffle pod offcuts has been to educate end users, such as builders and concreters, on the correct use of pod scrap bags to ensure the EPS offcuts are segregated without contamination from other building site waste.

To simplify scrap collection at the job site, Foamex supplies scrap bags with the delivery of all StyroPod products to assist with the separation of EPS from the general waste stream. These scrap bags and any offcuts are picked up by Foamex and transported safely to their manufacturing facility for granulation and recycling.

For each StyroPod project that Foamex supplies, 2 cubic metres of scrap previously destined for landfill are reclaimed and recycled. For an average of 600 StyroPod waffle pod projects across Australia each week, Foamex’s recovery program reclaims approximately 1200m³ of polystyrene on top of other active reclaiming and recycling efforts carried out by the company.

At Foamex, all our polystyrene manufacturing waste is recycled or converted into other products.

References:

[1] https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/b0ac5ce4-4253-4d2b-b001-0becf84b52b8/files/case-studies.pdf

[2] https://www.environment.gov.au/protection/national-waste-policy/publications/construction-and-demolition-waste-status-report