The building and construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of heat-trapping pollution. A new innovation in cement recycling can be a game-changer for one of the planet's most polluting materials.
A collaborative team from the University of São Paulo and Princeton University discovered a process for recycling cement waste that can help to decarbonize the construction sector.
The group's innovation can contain up to 80% recycled content while matching the strength of Portland cement, the most common type of cement globally. According to Interesting Engineering, Portland cement "is responsible for around 8% of global carbon emissions."
Their paper, published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, argues that recycled cement can reduce the cement industry's pollution by 61%.
The team heated the cement waste, ground into a powder, to 500 degrees Celsius (932 degrees Fahrenheit) to optimize binding properties while minimizing pollutants. To ensure that it maintained strength, a mixture of 80% recycled cement was combined with either Portland cement or limestone.
"The leap forward here is that you can now get short- and long-term properties that are essentially the same as Portland cement by itself with a low-carbon alternative overwhelmingly composed of recycled materials," one of the study's co-authors, Claire White, told Interesting Engineering.
When our building materials are cleaner, we all win.
Certain construction materials and activities contribute to air pollution and can release volatile organic compounds into the air. Keeping these to a minimum helps preserve our health in a variety of ways.
The National Resources Defense Council puts the current cement industry's impact into perspective. They wrote that, "If the cement industry were a country it would rank as the world's fourth largest GHG emitter." Greener cement technology would have a significant impact on reducing heat-trapping pollution.
Certain countries are taking note of the negative impact the cement industry is having on the environment. For example, Ireland announced measures and regulations to reduce cement pollution in 2024.
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Definitely 👍 For this new cement technology to scale up, people will have to shift their approach to waste disposal. Typically, cement from demolished buildings goes to a landfill.
To adopt this technology on a larger scale, building materials will have to be separated and go through the proper channels to be recycled.
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