Danish construction and demolition waste (C&D waste) accounts for one third of Danish waste
generation. There are also serval regulations and actions starting 1990 regarding effort of
recycling and upcycling the waste. Actions such as reduction in tax when the materials are
recycled, a detailed sorting procedure and ways of dealing with specific materials, specific
demolition procedures as well as goals for prevention and recycling (Montecinos and Holda,
2016). In the beginning of new millennia, the percentage of reuse rose to 95 percent (Rasmus
Toft et al., 2017).
There is a need of an overview of the existing building stock and the material it is made of to
increase reuse of the resources. This assessment creates a possibility to better plan and use
the stock as a future resource (Høibye and Søgaard Kirkeby, 2016). There is also a push for
better resource management. Danish environmental agency sets the focus with a new
strategy "Denmark without waste II – a strategy for waste prevention”, which focused on
reducing waste and creating possibilities for recycling. The initiative focused on seeing waste
as a resource and directs to better utilization of the resource. To improve recycling rate, and
increased focus on materials especially cement, which has a high environmental cost, as well
as metals and clay. There are three topics suggested for improvement. Which are the demand
for environmentally cleaner materials; materials that are environmentally improved under the
production phase as well as reduction of waste during construction. The goal is to reduce
pollutants and materials that will be landfilled, by setting the requirement of the recyclable
materials to make up ten percent of the buildings value and design buildings for easy
disassembly. It contains a suggestion of material passport for buildings, for an easy and fast
evaluation of potential resources as well as a plan and strategy to minimize waste during
construction, renovation and demolition (Høibye and Søgaard Kirkeby, 2016).