Urban Mining: samen Leuven ontginnen
Recovering, storing and reusing recovered building materials
About 35% of the waste in Flanders comes from construction and demolition activities, which are also responsible for a significant part of our CO2 footprint. Moreover, that waste often contains a large proportion of reusable materials. Through the Urban Mining project, Atelier Circuler wants to change this. We 'mine' the reusable materials from buildings in the urban environment of Leuven before they are demolished or renovated.
To collect and manage that material, we set up the Leuven Materials Bank. This is a web shop with a physical collection point for recovered building materials with a focus on wood. The largest share of our material comes from recovered streams from the City of Leuven, Vites, Ecowerf and Zorg Leuven.
In addition to the Materials Bank, we have an open workshop for wood, metal and small electro where anyone can come and work at an advantageous rate. We also organise workshops here on a regular basis. Due to the corona measures, the workshop was only open for two months, but as soon as it is possible again, the workshop operation will start again.
Furthermore, we partly finance our own operation through projects and customised products, mainly in wood and metal. Some examples are a forest shelter, cutting boards made of rubber wood, memory benches, etc. For these, too, we use recycled and ecologically sound building materials as much as possible.
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What will the future bring?
We will continue to mine materials and carry out customised projects as we have been doing. The studio will also reopen after the lockdown.
To make a bigger impact, however, we need to be able to scale up. For example, we are investigating whether a structural collaboration is possible with the three largest building owners in Leuven, namely the City of Leuven, KULeuven and UZLeuven. Together, we can create a larger materials bank, which other private players can join later. We are also looking at the option of involving the social economy in the sorting of materials.
To increase the efficiency of the Materials Bank, it is important that we obtain a type 2 environmental licence in the medium term. This will allow us to make the switch from waste to raw material, which is not possible at present. This will enable us to process larger quantities of material more easily.
In terms of personnel, we hope to grow from three to five full-time equivalents within three years.
Finally, we would like to expand the fallen timber project. With a mobile tree saw and a new drying place for wood, we can significantly increase our efficiency, and thus our turnover.
