Energy recovery

Redirecting waste away from landfill into reuse, recycling or energy recovery routes. Diversion rates are widely used as a sustainability metric for sites and projects, including in construction site waste management planning.

The stage in a product's life cycle when it is removed from service and must be reused, recycled, recovered or disposed of. End-of-life scenarios are a required consideration in life cycle assessment and increasingly influence material selection for composites and roofing systems.

Recycling in which the recovered material is of lower quality or value than the original, so it can only be used in less demanding applications. Mixed glass fibre composite waste, for example, is often downcycled into filler or aggregate rather than new structural laminate.

An economic model that keeps products and materials in use for as long as possible through reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling, in contrast to the linear take, make, dispose model. In materials specification it drives requirements for recycled content, design for disassembly and credible end-of-life routes.