'After intake, sandwich panels become a raw material again'

Recycling PIR insulation material

For years, PIR insulation material was not recyclable. This meant that the insulation core in sandwich panels had to go to landfill at the end of its service life. FALK Bouwsystemen introduced sandwich panels with a recyclable insulation core and now goes one step further: sawing waste can be taken in for recycling free of charge.

"Sandwich panels have great properties: you can build with them at lightning speed, there are very many different options for cladding your building and they have excellent insulating properties. Until recently, there was one major disadvantage: the insulation material in them was not recyclable," says Rutger van der Laan of FALK Bouwsystemen. This is why FALK introduced the CradleCore® label: sandwich panels that are guaranteed to be recycled at the end of their useful life.

Ambitious 

"We are a relatively young company," says Van der Laan. "We entered an already existing market in 2007 and put our shoulders to the wheel together, so that we are now the market leader in the Netherlands. We have that same ambitious mindset when it comes to sustainability. We asked ourselves the question: what future does the sandwich panel have in a circular world? A sandwich panel consists of two steel plates with PIR insulation material in between. PIR has good properties during use, but was always considered non-recyclable. You can find a solution to that in different ways. For example, you can strive to use less PIR, but our starting point was to find a way to recycle PIR. We were able to do that. About three years ago, we came full circle with our breakthrough in PIR recycling."

Collaboration

"In practice, it goes like this," Van der Laan explains. "You buy a sandwich panel with CradleCore® core from us with a take-back guarantee. This gives you the guarantee that our sister company InSus in Duiven will take back the panels at the end of their lifespan. InSus separates the steel plates and the PIR insulation material. The steel goes to the blast furnaces for recycling and the insulation core is ground up and pulverized into a new raw material for our sandwich panels or the InSus insulation boards." The process is now in its initial stages. "In doing so, we monitor closely: what does this process do to the performance of PIR? How can we improve and expand the process? Now that we know HOW PIR can be recycled, we continue to figure out how to do it on a large scale and how to optimize it. This is why the collaboration with InSus is so valuable. They are experts on recycling, we are experts on sandwich panels and their performance. Together we can continuously improve the process and the product."

Free collection of saw waste

As of February 1, however, FALK Bouwsystemen is taking recycling one step further. "In the process, the sawing waste from the CradleCore® sandwich panels was already taken in for recycling. Now we are taking another step: we are taking the sawing waste from all our panels free of charge. This sawing waste is created during construction: a frame or a door needs to be inserted in the sandwich panel, a corner needs to be removed somewhere or a bite needs to be taken out, ... Previously, all those pieces had to go to the landfill, now we can take them back and use them as raw material. Win-win. Our customers save on landfill costs and this way we ensure that sandwich panels are not waste, but a valuable new raw material."