Criteria for an environmentally sound reuse of construction and demolition waste in the EU within the concept of circular economy.

Estate sector is energy and material intense industry. Construction and demolition waste represent the highest flux of waste at European Union. As part of the circular economy concept, the European Community has set certain limits on the re-use, recycling and recovery of other materials, including backfill for CDW, in order to make itself sustainable and more independent in terms of material sources. High recycling rate has been achieved in most EU Country as Austria and Italy, anyway to close the loop the main hurdler is the lack of confidence in the quality of the recycling aggregates. Standardised sampling methods and environmental testing increase confidence in the use of aggregates to prevent any environmental and health impacts from their use. They are also required as criteria to establish EoW status together with limit values on certain substances for an environmentally friendly use of recycled aggregates. The regulatory framework of virtuous countries with their sampling methods and analytical tests drawn up for an environmentally compatible use of CDWs was conducted by analysing common strengths and weaknesses. Regulations implemented to date for the reuse of materials from construction and demolition activities, such as the EoW, allow member states to achieve high recovery rates, even though they feed into low-quality recycling. Composite materials and the addition of chemicals in prefabricated materials make recycling an even more difficult challenge. The risk-based method for determining screening values or site-specific risk assessment for environmental reuse of CDWs should be implemented for emerging contaminants.