Managing construction and demolition (C&D) waste - a European perspective.

In many countries, levels of Construction and demolition (C&D) waste generation have risen due to the rapid growth of towns and cities. Although now the activity has entered in a phase of decline, due to the change of the economic cycle, we don't have to forget all the problems caused by such waste, or rather, by their management. In this sense, important developments have been incorporated into European and International laws which aim to promote recycling and recovering. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to give an overview of the current situation of C&D waste in Europe, as well as the different measures that have been applied to solve this situation. Results show that countries with a high percentage of recycling rate of C&D waste take into account the recycling of soil, which correspond to a large part of the waste recycled. In this sense, soil is excluded in the new recycling target for C&D waste. Therefore, we can conclude that the management chosen for the C&D waste in Europe is still far from achieving the target for recycling, which demands an overall target of 70% for C&D waste should be recycled by 2020.