By Joan Ferrer, Commercial Director, UK & Ireland at Ravago Building Solutions
A century ago, “the material of a thousand uses” was a vision for the future of plastic. Invented in 1907, the first fully synthetic plastic was – with remarkable clairvoyance – marketed as almost infinite in its applications, promising to revolutionise our daily lives.
And so it did. In the past 20 years alone, annual global production of all plastics has near enough doubled [1], yet unfortunately more than half of the nine billion tonnes manufactured since the 1950s has ended up as waste – causing such havoc that it has recently united 175 countries in an agreement to develop a world-first treaty towards ending plastic pollution [2].
To many people, plastic is now a dirty word – but to those of us in construction, it’s synonymous with words like strength, versatility and durability. While we must be conscious of the environmental footprint of this material, we couldn’t do without it; from safety-critical PPE, to basic tools, to robust building products, plastic has quite literally helped to build the modern world, and used responsibly, it has a role to play in building a greener world.
As demand for ecological construction rises as the world treads the road to net-zero, plastic-derived products increasingly seem to elicit a reflexive sheepishness amongst specifiers. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to insulation.
Perception seems to have a lot to do with it: one recent study points toward our subconscious drive to favour “natural” construction materials over synthetic, whilst another highlights a significant gap in European construction professionals’ understanding of the environmental burden associated with thermal insulation materials, perhaps exacerbated by the inconsistent quality of environmental product declarations (EPD) for building products [3].
Of course, when faced with progressively more rigorous standards for sustainable building, perception is surpassed by the proven thermal performance of plastic materials such as extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation.
One of the simplest methods of improving overall building performance is to address heat loss, especially via the specification of high-performance XPS roof insulation. Double or triple layering a lesser-performing alternative is an option – but not a logical one, when you factor in the increased financial and environmental costs of product, transport, and labour. A single layer of next-generation XPS insulation can hit U-value targets as stringent as 0.10 W/m2k.
Its low thermal conductivity, high compressive strength, and superior thermal resistance also ensure a longer lifespan for the roof, reducing the environmental payback period – one arena in which plastic’s longevity is a blessing. In one study, XPS installed under freezing, high-traffic Alaskan roads and airport runways far outperformed expanded polystyrene (EPS), which needs to be 1.5 to 2 times thicker than XPS to deliver the same in-service R-value [4].
The same is true even in much warmer, more volatile climates: when, after 17 years, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was re-roofed in 2003, scientists found that the original XPS insulation had survived everything from tornadoes, to extreme heatwaves, to one of the most destructive hailstorms in history, with minimal changes to the R-value, compressive strength, and moisture uptake. Over 90% of this existing XPS was able to be reused. Alongside a crucial reduction in waste and emissions, this enabled six-figure savings on the costs of labour, product, haulage and disposal, and minimal operational disruption for the client and building occupants.
Clearly, ambition needn’t stop at the first application – or indeed the second. ‘Reduce’ comes first in the waste management hierarchy, but recycling is also key to conserving energy and resources in the production of building materials.
Materials are known to contribute around 70% to the construction sector’s carbon footprint (plastic and rubber account for 13% of CO2 equivalent emissions caused by material production[5]). Consequently, it’s understandable that the latest report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reaffirms that greater commitment to achieving circularity and efficiency of carbon-intensive materials will be key to our net-zero ambitions.
Fortunately, XPS insulation is composed of recyclable polystyrene – a thermoplastic that theoretically can be remoulded and reused without limit (unlike irreversibly rigid thermoset plastics, such as the polyisocyanurate used for PIR insulation).
This year, a substantial investment into a new plastic pelletiser at our King’s Lynn plant has enabled us to take another important step in our earnest pursuit of a circular economy for Ravatherm XPS X products. We have always recycled rejected boards – the product that doesn’t meet our high standards – but this new equipment opens the door for greater possibilities in sourcing waste thermoplastics to reform into pellets that are almost indistinguishable from their virgin counterparts.
The new equipment has significantly increased our recycling capacity, enabling our customers to be part of Ravago’s sustainability journey. Inevitably, XPS installation generates waste, but several of our customers are now able to return their offcuts to us for recycling. In theory, this could extend to the end of life – if processing and transport considerations allow, insulation removed from buildings could be recycled too.
Of course, there are challenges around taking material from mixed sources; all boards are polystyrene, but not all polystyrene is exactly the same. Recycled pellets can have inconsistent chemical qualities which makes it difficult to account for in production equipment – for example, the resulting gel used to manufacture boards can act differently due to varying elasticity. At the moment, we are able to include up to 40% recycled material in Ravatherm XPS X boards, but there is significant potential for growth. Large-scale recyclers, like ISOPOR in Germany, can potentially provide the consistent quality needed for 100% recycled materials products given the size of their operations. For Ravago, there is hope and scope for technology to bridge the gap in the near future and eliminate reliance on virgin plastics.
Partnering with Neste, the world’s leading producer of drop-in renewable feedstocks and solutions for the polymers & chemicals industry, the Ravago Group last year announced plans to establish a joint venture to build an industrial facility for chemical recycling in North Sea Port in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. Ushering in a collaborative approach to advanced recycling, which turns hard to recycle plastics into raw materials, the agreement has unlocked a new, more environmentally conscious meaning to “the material of a thousand uses”.
First published in Total Contractor, June 2022
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/282732/global-production-of-plastics-since-1950/
[2] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113142
[3] https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/sustainability/sustainability-14-03042/article_deploy/sustainability-14-03042-v2.pdf
[4] https://xpsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/XPSA-IP-BG-01_Nov.8.2019_Preprint.pdf