Categorie: recycling
Recycled materials, once created their impact on the environment, in many forms, and if that (negative) impact is not repaired or compensated, those materials still carry an impact in a second life. In other words , they cannot be considered impact free resources at the time of recycling, at any…
Life has an end, but is there also an ‘end of life’, for products and buildings? Which is frequently used in science, like in building evaluations calculating with a maximum life span, but seems weird. It is understandable in trade, for product developers, that want things to be replaced at…
What is better , a friend active in the beverage world asked, recycling aluminium cans or recycling glass bottles? Neither, I immediately replied: always reuse, and never use aluminum. As the Dutch national environmental center reports: a deposit beer bottle is 8 x as environmentally friendly as a disposable bottle….
Many colleagues in the field feel frustrated when trying to improve the materials performance of buildings: the lobbying and framing of materials is huge, blurring a real discussion on what materials with best performance and lowest impact should be applied. I have come across these discussions myself many times as…
(master-classes on this topic and others, see on the right) ” What is Circular Building really?” , a Dutch journalist twittered, being confused about the debates going on. Its not clear yet, apparently, so lets give it a try. The word “Building” we all understand, its about the word Circular…
(below is a improved English text compared to the first one published. Thanks to (editing by) Simon McGuinness..!) The circular economy, is about closing production cycles, is it not? So, it is about restoring the original stock. Otherwise the resource is depleted, and we run out of stock. Yes? But…
Circular is “hot”. But the interpretation of ‘circular’ is crippled. As I can conclude after reading some recent reports on the topic. For sure when its coupled to economy, its more about business as about closing cycles or circularity. And money as a reference, is a artificial measuring unit, in…
october 2015 (2, see for part 1: http://www.ronaldrovers.com/?p=31) Part II: current recycling Have you ever thought about recycling? And how the impacts from first time used seem to be disappeared when re-used now? This is the great mystery of circular economy: the lost impacts . We calculate a lot, but…
october 2015 (1/2 see part 2: http://www.ronaldrovers.com/?p=34 ) PART I: recycling in the future. What about claims about recycling in future? Shifting the problem to your children, and claiming a profit now? Recycling seems a good idea. And it is. However, its one of the most frequent misused criteria for sustainability, claiming…
