Last week ReSource International hosted guests from the Azores; Francisco S. Fernandes, the director of LREC, Catarina Amaral, a LREC researcher and Raquel Galante, engineer and researcher at CIMPA.
ReSource has collaborated with the group on the Rebuild17 project. The goal of Rebuild is to maximize the utilization of construction and demolition waste (CDW) in the Azores by using the circular economy paradigm. One of the solutions created is a soon-to-be-launched web platform that connects suppliers of CDW with those who wish to reuse or recycle it. The project aimed also at the development of new construction products which utilize CDW, such as wood, glass and gypsum.
The group along with Hafliði Eiríkur Guðmundsson, Environmental consultant at ReSource visited places related to the circular economy in the southwest corner of Iceland. On their tour of Pure North Recycling they saw how geothermal steam and water are used in plastic recycling, and chatted with Portuguese staff members of the plastic recycling company. The group had a meeting with Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson minister of Environment, Energy and Climate. The group also visited Malbikstöðin, which is at the vanguard of environmental innovation in Icelandic asphalt pavement production, Arctic Plank, which refurbishes interiors and products out of waste wood, the geothermal power plant Hellisheiðarvirkjun and the municipal waste management company SORPA, where they were introduced to local plans to increase the reuse of construction waste.
The group went back to the Azores and is now busy planning a conference on CDW which will be held on the island of San Miguel at the end of October.
