‘It’s beautiful, don’t you think?’ The urban miners unearthing treasure in Belgium’s homes and garages | Green building

yourAbi Elie Simps was originated, and most of her five brothers were builders, and even left her last job, she was also created. Now, after identifying surface professionals and smpels bricks flying a new trade: “urban mining”. She and her six children are still wearing and speaking like builders, but their focus is now less about construction of dismantling.

“I love it when I can go to work and learn something new,” says 43 -year -old, referring to a pile of wooden floor tiles at the corner of the terrace house that helps in stripping it. “Like how to break wooden floors without actually breaking them.”

Sempels is one of the hundreds of workers and volunteers throughout the historic Belgian city Leuvin It is involved in an ambitious waste reduction project and the creation of a “circular economy”. The plan, packed by the 28th “Movement Points” in the city official A circular strategyIt aims to reduce material consumption and to be “more aware of the planet’s borders.”

The main protagonist of the idea is Thomas Van Ouvars, a member of the Green Belgium and Vice -President of the city. From his office, which is looking for a wave of home roofs towards the city center in the city, it sets a glowing vision for the future of Leuven, when everything is taken from kitchen waste to the surplus factory temperature, recycling and reusing it indefinitely. He runs his slogan: “What enters the city remains in the city.”

Beyond Van Awdar’s optimism, ecological optimism lies in a more realistic awareness that the circular ambitions of the city require a pragmatic foot. Consequently, the decision to give the initial priority to the city built to the city. “Our ambition, as a city, is to become a neutral of carbon [by 2050]He says, “And if you look purely to influence the climate, the buildings play a very big role.” According to the European Commission, about 40 % of the energy consumed in the European Union is used in buildings while more than a third of the greenhouse gas emissions come in buildings.

This search process begins even before Sempels, urban mining team appear with their keys, infiltrators, and Crowbars. By working closely with architects and developers, the urban planning department in the city determines the identification of property that is to be demolished and evaluated what may be rescue.

the The committee funded the various pilots To determine the reusable materials using 3D scanners and other digital magicians, but at the present time, the process is mainly promoted to a fast expert in restoring the materials. In the Leuven case, this function falls Physical materialsA non -profit initiative that enhances the recovery and resale of waste that would go to skip.

Standing next to SEMPELS in the half-non-advanced living room in the Kessel-Lo area in Leuven is Ward Versapen, the logistics manager at MaterialeenBank. Referring to the hallway and two rooms on the ground floor, passes through the most sought -after elements: bricks, stone, roof tiles, steel beams, wooden panels and floors, as well as carpentry elements such as doors and window frames.

With some fast sand or fresh varnish from lacquer, some of the things that have been rescued like them can be reused. When the elements deteriorate, or when the safety regulations do not allow this, “collapse” is the next best option, he says: It is believed that the steel symptoms that are repaid as a scaffold tile or ceiling as materials for interior walls.

The similar houses among them are part of a residential bloc before the war near the Leuven railway station that the City Council has allocated to demolish to add green space and reduce traffic congestion. It includes some of the thirty houses or so, which “mining” expects next year.

In Leuven circular plans, rehabilitation of people is like reusing materials. Throughout Belgium, there are initiatives to enhance the “social economy” that puts people on profits. Sempels is a beneficiary of this approach: I took the job after a long time without work, as the other Belgian citizen did in its crew. The other five members are from Iraq, Palestine, Ethiopia, Mali and Caucasus.

All of them are employed by Wonen En Werken (Living and Working), a social institution that provides a variety of services directed towards the public, including garden maintenance, cleaning, renewal and gardening. It has 200 people or so in his books, all on the minimum wage or higher, with the salaries of partially supported by the Flemish government. “Often, we have been working with people who have been working for a long time, and they have to teach, and they have many problems outside the work … Certainly, many have their problems, but they also have their capabilities,” says Patrick Witters, Employment Coordinator in Wenn Enirkin.

A similar interaction between the social and environmental goals plays in the town’s edge depot where the material materials are based. The folder -like facility has a large area for cleaning and storing demolition materials, but also a workshop areas can be used by local craftsmen and businessmen to manufacture things from rescued materials.

Among the pioneers of Bram de Reeder, 22 -year -old climbing fans, and creates a small manufacturing wall of the remaining wood. After a friend told him about MateialBank, he now comes regularly to refine his skills and start his work. He says: “I used to use the old wood that my father was lying around or I would go to diving for old furniture, but now I came here. I use the equipment and use the materials that will be expensive.”

However, the main functionality of Materialeenbank is a way between building developers and property suppliers in Leuven. In the three years that have passed since it started, the initiative witnessed an increase in its annual sales with more than ten times, from 20 tons to more than 250 tons, and it seeks to obtain larger places, says August Smessaert: “It is difficult for trucks with upcoming heavy loads and going, and gates are not high … We can be able to do so [recovering] More than 5,000 tons by 2030.

One answer is not to return everything to the warehouse, instead, persuade buyers to capture it directly from where “mining” is done. Smessaert says, it is relatively easy for bricks, steel and iron, as there is a already used market, but it is difficult for other materials where more restoration work or where new purchase is cheap or cheaper.

Therefore, Materialeenbank tends to give priority to the collection of wood, as the demand is high and the margins are reasonable. However, finding buyers is not easy, as Smessaert admits. Building contractors only doubts new ideas, but they also like the certainty that comes from a new purchase. With recycled materials, the width can be incomplete, storage units and quality variable.

To try to improve matters, the city council concluded a deal with three of the largest Leuven institutions: 600 -year -old Ku Leuven University, the university hospitals (the largest hospital in Belgium), and the IME semiconductor specialist. Not all three have not committed to work with MaterialeNNK only to provide waste materials, but also to integrate the recovered elements into construction and future renewal.

Therefore, when the University Education Hospital decided to build a student of “Chilot District” and the supervisor, the Business Department looked at the re -use market. The results are two recently completed facilities that were mostly designed from unloading materials.

At Paul Lodewijck’s show, hospital head for construction and new laboratories, items that have a previous life bring a personality to a place. It refers to the stairs and the wall seat, both of which are a source of beech trees that fell from the storm. He adds that the pine packs in the mezzanine come from the disassembled platforms, while the kitchen units are made of fiber panels from IMEC offices. The favorite of Lodewijckx is the long and MDF walnut table in the cold area. It was part of an exhibition in the Art Museum.

Loving boasts other examples. In the historical center Multi -level twisted wooden structure Urban sport and cultural events; It was part of Velodrome in the city. Meanwhile, three recently renovated social apartments were equipped near the De Brol Park in the city with new beds and floors, kitchen units and wardrobes made of recycled wood.

Although the various circular construction initiatives in the various Leuven, most of them are effective experimental projects. So, what is it required to make a good vision of Van get acquainted with the entire circular utopia? A tougher legislation would help. The proposed committee Ring Economy Law The reusing obligations can be placed on all builders. Other European cities have set their circular requirements. Zurich, for example, imposed the construction of all public buildings with at least 25 % of recycled concrete or other groups.

In order for urban mining to start, it will require a transformation in the mentality among all the residents of the city – and not only builders. Cuban Weiss, a engineering graduate who works as a coordinator in MaakleerPlek, a multi -use center dedicated to repair and reuse, says that the natural instinct of people needs to move from getting rid of old things to thinking about how to find their use or others for that. It is located under the previous grain silos owned by Brewer Stella Artois.

At the heart of the center, there is a large facility for the area filled with 3D printers, the supernova, chews, and other DIY equipment, as well as shelves of carpentry tools, broken bropix boxes, plywood and fabric strips. In the midst of organized chaos are the main Fobs, phone conditions, cheese panels and handicrafts for hundreds of schoolchildren who use the center regularly. “Every week in the summer, we take children who move on the canal to collect plastic garbage, and we use what we find here in the workshop,” says Weiss.

MaakleerPlek is also home to a project to repair small clothes that immigrants work, a texture room with knitting machines for the local population to learn basic sewing, and “library” tools where, for 40 euros (34 pounds) per year, residents can rent everything from stairs to power training. The center is just a group of repair crops, savings stores and similar re -use initiatives that now stand out throughout the city. These charts change slowly, but steadfastly, with the general perceptions of the reuse of the economy, from something that carries a “little stigma” to something “a kind of cold”.

This, at least, is the vision of Sofie De Brouwer, cleaned at the Elderly Care House at Leuven, which is regularly emanating in the Kringwinkel Eshorly store in the center of Leuven when doing it for the weekly supermarket. Part of a series of four such stores in the city run by the social establishment, it resembles each department store – where all shares are presented.

“I tell all of my friends to come here,” says De Burur, who wears a winter jacket (8 euros) and the printed handbag (4 euros. “If you go to a high street store, everything was chosen for you which is everything. Here, everything is old and different, which really attracts me.”

Returning to the terrace home that will be soon in Kessel-Lo, Sempels is likely to be won by the possibilities of the ringing approach to waste. She pulls her phone and proudly shows pictures of a new unit that has been installed to store garbage boxes on the street. He explains that it is made of wooden boards that helped save them. “This makes me happy when I see what [the salvage materials] She adds, “She is beautiful, don’t you think that?”