Even the most demanding applications of recycled materials, regarding technical properties, may be stopped due to lack of control of environmental effects. The Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT) has given precise requirements regarding material that is to be characterised as dangerous waste, and has also specified values for acceptable content of polluted materials in soils in sensitive areas. No boundaries have, however, been drawn up for the environmental effects between these extreme sets of requirements. SFT has defined environmental effects as the responsibility of the project owner.
In this connection there is a need for developing a simple model for evaluating the environmental effects from recycled materials under conditions typical for road construction activities. The aim is to formulate acceptance criteria for recycled materials based on a large number of environemtal risk assessments performed on typical road structures and the most common applications of recycled materials.
The
approach that the working group has chosen is described in a paper published in "Resources, Conservation and Recycling" in 2004.
WP2 is devided into the following tasks:
2-1 Environmental declaration of recycled materials
2-2 Environmental risk assessment for road structure with recycled materils
2-3 Formulating acceptance criteria for recycled materials.
In addition to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration the Norwegian Building Research Institute, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), SINTEF (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at
the Norwegian Institute of Technology), The Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT) and Rambøll Norway are participating in this WP. A PhD-student is working on the WP, and looking into environmental properties and environmental effects with particular emphasis on cement-based materials.
