The Interreg Aurora funded project EU-MAT: Effective Urban Material Mining in Cities addresses the low material circularity in construction across the northern regions of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, where logistical challenges and vast distances hinder efficient material reuse. One of the key barriers cited for not utilizing used building materials in a materials cascade, is concern and a lack of information about the availability and quality of these resources, making it difficult to match potential supply with new building projects. To overcome this specific obstacle, the project aims to develop an innovative urban material mining method that can accurately assess the quantity and quality of reusable materials from demolitions.
Through cross-border collaboration, the project will leverage material flow analysis, spatial modeling, and machine learning to create a mining method adaptable to northern cities. Especially in more sparsely populated areas, where transportation distances can be large, the re-utilization of recovered building products in new local construction projects can save considerably on transport and associated emissions. Moreover, localized reprocessing can create jobs helping strengthen the local economy.
Another major challenge addressed by EU-MAT is that buildings are hybrids, composed of many different materials and building products and there is lack of innovative solutions for new products using hybrid materials. EU-MAT will engage students and expert designs with local businesses to produce new building products to expand future re-usage scenarios for the reclaimed materials. Effectively reusing or recycling building products in this way will help reduce the impacts from the extraction of virgin materials as well as land-filling of construction and demolition waste, such as pollution, habit loss, and carbon emissions and thereby help protect biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Target groups are local SMEs, local authorities, and students.
Learn more about the project results on the project website
Contact:
Jouni Luoma, Project Manager, Karelia Ammattikorkeakoulu Oy, jouni.luoma@karelia.fi
Venla Heiskanen, Project Specialist, Karelia Ammattikorkeakoulu Oy, venla.heiskanen@karelia.fi
