About RECONMATIC
RECONMATIC is a 4-year research and innovation project, funded within the Horizon Europe scheme and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The project’s vision is the creation of solutions that will be easily adoptable by all stakeholders involved in the processes where Contruction and Demolition Waste (CDW) can be generated or managed, in order to reach the expected future EU target of high CDW recovery (to be set in 2024 or beyond) and most importantly the status of zero CDW by 2050.
To reach these targets the RECONMATIC consortium brings together 23 partners from 7 countries across the UK, EU and China, specifically chosen to cover the whole value chain for demonstrating innovative solutions in lifecycle C&D waste management. Six different use cases across Europe and the UK on buildings and transport infrastructure will be presented. Several others are expected to be introduced in China as well.
Mission and Progress
The core objective of RECONMATIC is to seamlessly integrate life-cycle C&D waste management into all stages of building/infrastructure-related processes. This involves introducing automation and digital tools to enhance communication and information sharing among stakeholders. The goal is to proactively minimise or mitigate waste generation, promote material or product reuse and recycling, and optimise decision-making to efficiently manage C&D waste. The project focuses on refining sorting methods for cleaner material streams within C&D waste, suggesting automation strategies for better waste processing logistics, and increasing waste valorisation through technical solutions. Ultimately, the project strives to efficiently manage construction processes to prevent and reduce waste.
Specifically, concluding the second year of the project, the consortium has completed its research to understand circular economy performance and implementation by the construction industry in different countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom. Soon, it will be continued in the People’s Republic of China. These current practices will be evaluated and further developed to support the supply chains while circular economies will be identified.
In parallel, we have introduced our approach to how simple or more advanced digital twins might be generated for end-of-life buildings based on existing drawings (2D drawings-to-digital model) or by using 3D scanning with automated processing of point clouds. To enhance the integration of recyclability and circularity in new buildings, attributes describing the waste and recycling aspects of materials, components, and other 3D geometry within BIMs were defined and published in a recent report. We call this data dictionary WASTEie.
Additionally, AI-based software for classifying construction and demolition waste (CDW) using low-cost sensor inputs is being developed, using machine learning models for recognizing and classifying CDW fragments through computer vision algorithms. This approach was tested on four common types of CDW material fragments typically found in mixed debris from demolition sites.
