Good practice:

Catalog of recycled aggregates of the Junta de Andalucía

In compliance with European and national guidelines on environmental efficiency in infrastructure construction, the Public Works Agency of Andalucía has carried out several research projects to promote the use of recycled materials in construction.
One of these is the Catalog of recycled aggregates made with construction and demolition waste (RCD), which aims to be a technical guide for designers and construction management, contributing to eliminate the technical barriers that exist for the use of these materials.
The catalog presents constructive solutions backed by experiences and calculations based onto the particular characteristics of recycled materials. These materials have undergone a physical and chemical characterization in the laboratory, and their behavior has been analyzed on a real scale through the execution of experimental sections, which have been evaluated over time through monitoring processes.
The Catalog offers standardized recycled material choices for the infrastructure developers and municipality’s infrastructure department. After this, the use of virgin raw materials extracted for the infrastructure projects is diminished and the recycled aggregates can replace the virgin ones.
Now there are standardized materials.
The purchasers now have a choice to add a requirement to the tender for using these recycled aggregates in the work.
The sucess of this initiative is to reduce the extraction of materials from the Earth with a guarantee of quality.

It was part of a bigger Research Project, that inluded other deliverables like a guide of Good practices in Building waste Plants and a test track.
Estimated costs. 6.000€
It was developed in 13 months by a mixed team with members from University, Demolition managers and the Public Agency of Works

Various infrastructure/road works, where arid recycled RCDs have been used, were executed and the condition of these works has remained satisfactory.
Málaga metro, workshops and underground garages, several streets, roads and avenues, and the two test sections built in 2008, i.e. the connections of the A-357 and A-367 roads, in Ardales, Málaga, with heavy traffic load.
In numerous cities, the RCD materials catalog is used, meeting all legal and quality requirements.

There is distrust of recycled aggregates due to the inexperience in its use, as well as the variability of the waste at the entrance.
A big challenge was to develop accurate standardas to make these materials reliable, so the definition of these products culd be included in tenders

Yes. Aggregates are, after water, the most extracted kind of natural resource in the Earth.
Any region that adopts the definition and the quality requirements standards of these materials can include it in tenders and a wide ammount of the aggregates demand that now is cover with virgin material will be satisfied with the recycled ones.