In 1995, the Construction Industry Recycling Initiative made a voluntary commitment to the German government at the time to halve the amount of mineral construction waste within 10 years. This voluntary commitment has been successfully fulfilled. Today, the recycling rate is around 90 percent of all mineral construction waste generated.

On average, around 208 million tonnes of mineral construction waste are generated in Germany every year. Around 125 million tonnes fall into the ‘soil and stones’ category, 56 million tonnes into the ‘construction waste including gypsum waste’ category, 16 million tonnes into the ‘road demolition’ category and around 11 million tonnes into the ‘construction site waste’ category.

While the fractions ‘construction waste’ (94.8 percent), ‘road demolition’ (98.2 percent) and ‘construction site waste’ (98.8 percent) are well above the average recycling rate for mineral construction waste of 90.4 percent, the recycling rate for the ‘soil and stones’ fraction is significantly lower at 86.7 percent.

19.9 million tonnes of mineral construction waste are disposed of, of which 81.9 percent is ‘soil and stones’.

The average recycling rate between 1995 and 2023 shows a total share of recycled and reusable mineral construction waste of 88.9 percent. Excluding the ‘soil and stones’ fraction, the disposal rate falls to 7 percent and the recycling rate thus rises to 93 percent.

The EU Waste Directive stipulates a minimum recycling rate of 70 percent for mineral construction waste. The German construction industry has been complying with this minimum value for years.

In order to efficiently increase the recycling rate, particularly in the ‘soil and stones’ fraction, changes to the framework conditions are necessary to strike a balance between soil and groundwater protection on the one hand and a circular economy committed to resource efficiency on the other.

The aim is to keep mineral waste in the material cycle as completely as possible.