Recycling in construction – actively implemented by HERING

Raw materials should not be extracted from the ground to the extent they were in the past – unless they grow back. Not just because raw materials will run out eventually, but also because their extraction aggravates many environmental problems such as water scarcity, the loss of biodiversity and soil degradation. Germany’s man-made inventory, the amount of processed raw materials, is 52 billion tons. Buildings and infrastructure account for a large part of this. Traffic infrastructure, for example, contains 10 billion tons.

Gravel on the flat roof before reuse

New buildings from old components

In the recycling economy, one attempts to turn some of this man-made inventory that is no longer used into new buildings, for example, and to forgo raw materials as far as possible. We want to practice this in the HERING Group: To date by processing old pre-fabricated concrete slabs into new concrete aggregate in the form of reinforced concrete (RC). Reusing entire components rather than breaking them up first to turn them into something else is new.

In the course of adding a floor to our HERING main building and renovating the lower floors, we attempted to reuse components that had to be removed where this was sensible. Five windows were reused, several radiators, many bricks and the gravel fill from the flat roof, which now covers the road along the meadow orchard.

Gravel covering the road