Mardi | 2010-04-20
B103

B. BRANDT – H. BUSCHMANN – Hans DAXB ECK – Bruno LEMIERE – J. SCHMIDT – S. VAXELAIRE – J. VILLENEUVE – B. WEIDEMA – libre

In the wider context of sustainable development and environment protection, theconnections between the use of natural resources, their accumulation in the economyand waste generation and management, need to be more clearly understood. Wastemanagement policies may affect potentially all sectors. Their influence on the use ofnatural resources must also account for the potential recovery of these resources fromstocks, the technical and economical constraints of recycling, the side effects on the byproductsassociated with natural resources, and at the end, the global balance of theenvironmental costs and benefits.The European FP6 FORWAST project intends to provide comprehensive and validateddata on the material flows, stocks and environmental pressures coming from thedifferent sectors of the life cycle of resources to waste. Certain stocks are particularlyrelevant to recycling in the construction industry.The method implemented is based on an environmentally extended, physical, quasidynamicinput-output model. This model combined with a robust method of MaterialFlow Analysis guides the mining of new data that take place as a combination of “indepth”studies in selected countries where high-quality statistics are available, and anEU-wide effort aimed at consolidating and calibrating different statistical and technicaldata sources.The model will be applied to historical time series of resource inflows into theeconomy, and calibrated to known quantities of waste generation, a core question beingthe estimation of coefficients for lifetime stocks, for the different materials (sand/gravel,wood, metals, paper, etc.) and the dynamic interpretation of the causes of stockvariations (accumulation versus waste generation or dispersive losses). The policyrelevanceof the project is strengthened by the definition of 25 years horizon scenariosof waste generation, combined with technological options for waste prevention andrecycling. The waste with the highest stakes with respect to environmental pressurereduction will be identified through simulation.This paper presents the first results of the project: the principles and the structure of themodel and the progress/difficulties of the data mining. It highlights the necessarydisaggregations of economic activities for accounting for waste flows and thesubstances taken into account for calculating environmental impacts.