Liège Creative: "Towards other uses for wood waste?"
Towards other uses for wood waste..., an event organized by Liège Creative
Several speakers took to the podium:
- Sophie Trachte, Professor(Faculty of Architecture, URA, ULiège) and leader of Valbowal ;
- Gaëtan Duyckaerts, Head of Management & Engineering (Atelier de l'Avenir)
- Laurie Verheyen, Circular Economy Strategy Coordinator (Citydev.brussels)
- Nicolas Smets CEO (BatiTerre)
Sophie Trachte began her presentation with a number of definitions of the circular economy, explaining why this is an issue for the construction sector. Indeed, the construction sector is a major consumer of resources, and must meet carbon neutrality targets. Today, it is faced with an old, inefficient building stock, for which solutions will have to be found.
In order to structure the actions to be implemented, Sophie Trachte started from the Waste Framework Directive, which proposes a hierarchy of actions in terms of waste prevention and recovery. It will therefore be essential to conserve products in order to avoid turning them into waste, based on the 9Rs concept, which consists in creating a more sustainable, closed-loop system to extend the useful life of products and maintain their value for as long as possible.
Gaëtan Duyckaerts then went on to explain how wood can be recycled. Les Ateliers de l'Avenir" has been in existence for 40 years. It employs disabled people, mainly deaf and hard-of-hearing. The company is based on a positive-impact model, focusing on people and resources. Its mission is to provide sustainable, dignified and rewarding employment.
The company has three main activities: sorting and repairing pallets, building wooden walls and carpentry. They work every day to make reused wood the norm. The company is based on the Lansink ladder, a waste management principle that prioritizes waste prevention, followed by reuse, recycling, incineration with energy recovery, and finally incineration and landfill. In this way, every piece of waste collected is recovered to the maximum.
Laurie Verheyen presented the Woodpark project, a public-private partnership for the reuse of construction wood, which was born of a desire to refocus activities on construction and the reuse of wood materials in Brussels, by centralizing existing players. It positions itself as a facilitator between supply and demand for reused wood materials, to increase the circularity of materials within Brussels construction sites.
The project currently consists of two workshops, located near Anderlecht, which will be equipped for storage, preparation for reuse, processing, training and new product development (R&D). Launched by the Irisphère program, supported by citydev.brussels, the project benefits from partnerships with experienced field companies such as MCB Atelier and BatiTerre.
Nicolas Smets considers it crucial to develop supply and demand to ensure the sustainability of the sector, which is currently based on the goodwill of convinced individuals. In his view, there is currently no legal obligation to reuse. As a reused material has no technical data sheet, the question of legal liability arises. An analysis of technical constraints is essential to determine their real necessity (safe in circularity: mastery of disassembly and reassembly). The integration of criteria facilitating reuse in Special Specifications (CSC) and initiatives such as MCB ateliers (creation of new products integrating reuse) are promising avenues.
Source: Liège Creative. For more information, visit their website, https://www.liegecreative.be/evenements/vers-dautres-valorisations-des-dechets-bois
