Mass Timber Made From Upcycled Construction Scrap to Be Featured at London’s BuildZero

The first timber structure made from CLT and glulam upcycled from construction scrap will be showcased at BuildZero in London, Wood Central reported (9-13-24).

Known as CascadeUp, the 3.5-meter high, 2.5-meter wide, 2-meter-deep modular demonstration follows years of collaboration between the University College London’s Circular Economy Lab and UK CLT, an R&D mill manufacturing mass timber from recycled wood off demolition sites.

“We can’t solve the climate crisis without transforming our built environment,” said Dr. Colin Rose, Senior Research Fellow at UCL and founding partner at UK CLT.

Spun out from a 2016 research project, a July 2020 study—which led to the formation of UK CLT—showed no significant difference between the compression stiffness and strength of cross-laminated secondary timber (CLST) and traditional CLT. In addition, a newer study published in January demonstrated the structural integrity of the recycled timber, subject to full-scale bending tests.

The push to manufacture new timber products from waste comes as Australian researchers are looking to use AI and robotics to improve the sorting of demolition materials—pinpointing recyclable steel, concrete, and timber that can be used in new projects. The technology not only has the potential to shake up the construction waste industry (responsible for 44% of all waste produced in Australia) but could be instrumental in driving the global pivot to a fully circular economy.

That is according to Monash University researcher Diani Sirimewan, who has published “Semi-supervised segmentation for construction and demolition waste recognition in the wild,” using deep learning and AI to create a “skip bin master”—trawling through Melbourne construction sites to recognize contained and recyclable materials.