Sustainable management and supply of natural and recycled aggregates in a medium-size integrated plant

The consumption of natural aggregates in civil engineering applications can cause severe environmental impacts on a regional scale, depleting the stock of bulk resources within a territory. Several methods can improve the environmental sustainability of the whole aggregates’ supply process, including natural and recycled aggregates’ productive chains, for instance promoting the use of recycled aggregates (RA). However, when quarrying and recycling activities are considered as stand-alone processes, also the RA supply chain may not be as sustainable as expected, due to the high environmental loads associated to transportation, if high distances from the production to the use sites are involved. This work gives some insights on the environmental impact assessment of the aggregates’ industry in the Italian context, through a comparative assessment of the environmental loads of natural and recycled aggregates’ productive chains. An integrated plant for the extraction of virgin aggregates and recycling of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) was analyzed as significant case study, with the aim to identify the influence of sustainable solutions on the overall emissions of the facility. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was used, using site-specific data and paying particular attention on transportation-related impacts, land use, avoided landfill and non-renewable resources preservation. From this work it was possible to evaluate the influence of transportation and PV energy use on the overall environmental emissions of natural and recycled aggregates’ productive chains.