Picture credit: The Hong Kong skyline
Necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s certainly true in the case of the Hong Kong developer with an ambitious plan to recycle huge quantities of tempered and laminated glass. With a project to revamp 12 buildings in progress, and local landfill sites close to capacity, a solution had to be found for the 50 tonnes of glass due to be produced by the building facade upgrades.
So, in collaboration with Gammon Construction and Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hongkong Land is bringing circular-economy principles to its latest development.
The plan is to grind the glass into aggregate to make low-carbon concrete partition blocks, which will be used in the building revamps. The three-year project involves upgrading facades, reconfiguring retail outlets, relocating lobbies and creating new exit staircases.
Known as Tomorrow’s Central, the project is due to be completed in 2027, and will be a step forward in using circular economy principles in Hong Kong. Gammon chief executive, Kevin O’Brien hopes that this partnership between commerce and academia will create “meaningful industry-wide change”.
With the aging building stock in the territory, it makes sense to embrace the circular economy and either reuse materials or find another use for waste construction materials.
This approach is talked about in the UK too, although according to RIBAJ – the Royal Institute of British Architect’s magazine – only 6% of flat glass is effectively recycled. And reuse or recycling of the insulated glass units used in facades has been difficult to achieve for multiple reasons. Not least the fact that facade glazing is a composite unit, and is therefore difficult and labour intensive to dismantle.
As it stands, the UK sends approximately 200,000 tonnes of building glass to landfill each year. Of course, we could use more of our waste glass as an aggregate in building materials, as is happening now in Hong Kong, but in a true circular economy we’d be able to reuse materials for their original purpose.
The reality is that circular economy principles need to be thought about at the design stage, not once materials are already in situ. We need to be designing glazing options that are well suited to reuse and recycling. One suggestion is that facades should be designed as sets of parts that come apart more easily than current units. This would make reuse more realistic and efficient.
I fear we are a long way off from this kind of reuse as the norm. But with glass production being such an intensive process, this is a sensible way for us to reduce our carbon footprint – by creating glazing units that are more versatile, and then using them in more than one building. It’s going to be a long road, but the circular economy will almost certainly have to become the standard way of doing things. Eventually.
Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
