Tool reduces the environmental and economic impact of construction and demolition waste

The new calculation tool, named "Labwaste.12," includes more than 200 parameters and variables that must be taken into account when planning a landfill. It can be applied both in the training field (on issues related to this subject) and in the professional field for the design, operation or closing of these facilities. The programme is now ready to be used and there is no method on the market that provides many output data.

The idea for this work arose from the need to investigate new applications for waste that, until now, had been taken to manufacture structural concrete, but that were stuck with the crisis in the construction sector, and employ them in landfills, where there is a greater and continuous demand independent of the economic situation, with an indefinite use. The last comprehensive waste plan (PIR) of the Valencian Community watched a shortfall in treatment plants of this kind of waste and raised the need to increase them in the future.

This tool reduces the environmental impact caused by quarrying, due to the fact that it gives value to inert solid waste with little commercial outlet that accumulate in landfills. In addition, the economic costs are reduced, since research by Joan Esteban Altabella shows that currently there are landfills in operation or closing phase that could obtain significant savings if they employ aggregates derivate from construction and demolition and not from quarry.

The programme estimates the aggregate demand in phases or periods of time, thus getting a better organization and cost reduction that can be quite significant. It is a multifactorial dependency tool that identifies the variables that influence a greater or lesser demand for aggregates and relates them mathematically, so that it changes the result if any of them varies. Labwaste.12 offers the possibility of using specific facts of a landfill or, by default, use the average data already included in the programme. It also provides information on other materials required in this type of installation, such as geomembranes, pipes, geotextiles, etc. Finally, the programme provides a final report to check the entered data and it automatically generates a budget with the required aggregate costs.

In the month of July, Francisco J. Colomer has presented a paper on this work entitled "Labwaste.12: herramienta de cálculo para el diseño de vertederos de residuos sólidos con valorización de residuos inertes" in the 17th International Congress on Project Management and Engineering that was held in Logroño (Spain), which has been awarded the prize for the best paper of the congress. In October, he presented the communication "Aprovechamiento de residuos inertes para la construcción, explotación y clausura de rellenos sanitarios" in the V Latin American Symposium on Waste Engineering to be held in Argentina, and the book Aprovechamiento de residuos inertes para la construcción, explotación y clausura de rellenos sanitarios will be published in the collection "Sapientia" by Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume including a CD containing the software and a user manual.

The research by Joan Esteban Altabella and Francisco J. Colomer is part of the project "Evaluación de la viabilidad teórica, ambiental y socioeconómica de la transformación de un tiradero en un centro de manejo integral de residuos" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation in 2009 within the subprogramme for the Promotion of International Scientific Cooperation of the Programme of National Internationalization of R & D of the Waste Engineering Research Group at the Universitat Jaume I.