Page 101 from: Recycling International free issue 3 2023

IN THE LABORATORY

101recyclinginternational.com | May/June | 2023

How recycling
can help Syrian
people rebuild
their lives
A consortium of researchers led by the University

of Aleppo in Syria is looking into the potential for

recycling war-torn buildings. It’s hoped their work

will set a precedent for tapping this unexplored

and sizeable waste stream.

The ongoing Syrian civil war began in
2011 and has left more than 130 000
buildings destroyed, 70% of which are
made from reinforced concrete. This
amounts to almost 15 million tonnes of
debris, according to the World Bank
Group. With millions of displaced refu-
gees expected to return within the
next ten years, the country will have to
achieve rapid urban redevelopment.
This year’s massive earthquake in Syria
has exacerbated the need for new
housing and infrastructure.

WIDELY AVAILABLE
A new study led by the University of
Aleppo is examining the feasibility of
reusing concrete from destroyed build-
ings within recycled concrete aggre-
gate (RCA). It is working with other
institutions in Syria, Turkey and the UK
to develop much-needed recommen-
dations for the sustainable redevelop-
ment of Syria’s infrastructure. The work
was inspired by redevelopment efforts
across Germany and the Netherlands
following the second world war that
saw up to 45% of building materials
being reused, typically brick by brick.
So, although the concept of recycling
this material is not new, researchers
note that the properties of RCA gener-
ated from such a polluted source must

be carefully assessed to validate its
reuse potential.
‘Never has demolished concrete been
so widely available as it is now in parts
of Syria, rendering the potential impact
of this work enormous,’ says assistant
professor Abdulkader Rashwani, lead
author of the study. He explains that
‘simple and established methods’ were
used to collect and test rubble to simu-
late real-life scenarios of securing recy-
cled building materials from war waste.

50% REPLACEMENT
Rashwani’s team analysed rubble from
destroyed buildings at 10 different
sites in and around the city of al-Bab in
northern Syria. The chemical and physi-
cal properties of the RCA were mea-
sured, followed by a determination of
the properties of the concrete pro-
duced using a mixture of RCA and nat-
ural aggregates. Initial analysis showed
that about 30% of the buildings in the
worst-hit areas were destroyed while
60% were severely damaged.

Reducing the
need for new
materials is said to cut construction
costs in half and those contributing to
the project say this initiative provides
unique evidence that RCA from the
rubble of war-destroyed buildings can
be ‘immediately valorised’ as a sustain-
able alternative to natural coarse
aggregates in concrete. ‘In fact, up to
50% replacement can be achieved
without significantly affecting the per-
formance of the new concrete,’
Rashwani reports.
The R&D project is backed by materi-
als specialists at Sham University
(Syria), Middle East Technical University
(Turkey), and the University of Sheffield
(UK). They tested the input ranging
from virtually none to 100% recycled
content, with promising results in
terms of density, tensile splitting, com-
pressive strength and overall material
resilience. Their full work has been
published in the Journal of Materials in
Civil Engineering.

For more details, contact Abdulkader
Rashwani via: [email protected]

Share your innovative recycling
projects with us via:
[email protected]

A U T H O R Kirstin Linnenkoper

RESEARCH

PIONEER __
_________

SUPPORT FR
OM

infrastructure
recycling

Abdulkader R
ashwani

Aleppo Unive
rsity

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