Recycling Construction, Renovation, and Demolition Plastic Waste: Review of the Status Quo, Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract End-of-life treatment of construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) plastic waste generated from day-to-day applications of plastics in the construction industry can negatively impact the environment if not handled properly. Addressing this issue is crucial considering the current unprecedented increasing rate of the use of plastics in the construction industry all over the world. Globally, the current option for managing CRD plastic waste is mainly landfill due to inadequate guidelines and standards, avoidance of risk, and lack of knowledge and experience in recycling CRD plastic waste. This trend counteracts the efforts towards a circular economy and crude oil independency. Therefore, developing commercially feasible end-of-use recycling technologies is indispensable to guarantee a sustainable future for the plastics employed in the construction sector. Despite the high theoretical recyclability of the plastics, recycling CRD plastic waste is economically unattractive since the material is contaminated and difficult to sort and separate. In addition, the cost of recycling is hardly recovered because of the material’s low value. This paper reviews the status quo, technologies, challenges, barriers, opportunities and recent initiatives on recycling CRD plastic waste. The paper identifies the framework and technology modifications required to overcome the current obstacles to implementing commercial-scale recycling. It emphasizes the importance of establishing an effective collection network, imposing price signals by authorities to impress landfilling of CRD plastic waste, and developing policies and regulations to enforce manufacturers to take end-of-life responsibilities by up-designing the product considering facilitated recycling. The paper concludes with a focus on investigating recent global state-of-art measures taken to tackle barriers against CRD plastic waste recycling. This study will assist the plastic construction sector with manufacturing, recycling, policymaking, benchmarking purposes, and implementation considering environmental and economic benefits.