VALUTAZIONE LCA DI UN EDIFICIO REALIZZATO CON CONTAINER PER TRASPORTI MARITTIMI RIUSATI

Abstract

The construction sector, one of the economic sectors with the highest production of waste and consumption of resources, is increasingly an area of ​​interest for European circular economy policies, becoming a field for experimenting with materials recovery practices aimed at closing the cycle of materials. In this context of research towards innovative circular solutions, it is necessary to equip with life cycle supporting tools useful for evaluating the actually achievable environmental benefits.

The paper shows the Life Cycle Assessment as a useful tool to control and quantify the environmental impact related to the application of strategies aimed at the circularity of material flows. The object of the LCA study is the residential prototype designed and built within the research project “cHOMgenius. PrototypeSystem&Shared Project. Soluzioni straordinarie per l’abitare intelligente”, funded by the SmartLiving call of Lombardy Region. The prototype is based on the reuse of shipping containers, which have reached the end of their useful life in the commercial sector, for the bearing structure of a building, and the application of reversible construction techniques. The prototype is an example of circular economy application in the building sector: by extending the life of containers modules and ensuring the disassembly of building components, it reduces the consumption of resources and the generation of construction and demolition waste.

The paper deals with the methodological aspects and the results of the LCA study, highlighting the environmental impacts and benefits achieved by materials and components reuse and the use of dry technologies for the envelope and completion parts. The results are compared with a Baseline scenario, which considers the same materials but with environmental profiles not optimized from an environmental point of view, and with a Business as Usual scenario, which considers the same performance building built with conventional construction solutions.