September - 2021 CONSTRUCTIONTECHREVIEW.COM8IN MYOPINIONThe `Material passport' approach in construction is being refined by various companies in many Euro-pean countries. There is an urgency to land the right approach because quick access to accurate information on building materials enables active, swift recovery and reuse of units, products, or materials in buildings. The construction industry needs to encourage the reuse of build-ing materials, particularly when we understand that raw materials are becoming scarce and deficient and that the heavy use of raw resources will destroy the environment. The concept of reusing building components has not been adopted yet on a large scale because of several reasons. One of the key reasons is poor build-ing information management. Thus the goal of BAMB (Buildings as Materials Bank) is to let the people shift to a circular building sector, which mean, reusing the components and products which are in useable condition. BAMB focuses on reusing the building materials, which is in a good and reusable condition. Reusing the construction material leads to less wastage of raw materials, adequate usage of construction material, and low cost of construction. It also saves the environment and raw materials. The correct information is appropriate for the recovery and reuse of materials, products or components in buildings. For keeping materials, products and components that can be used sometimes later in some other construction project, this information is also needed. The electronic Materials Passports developed in BAMB focuses to be a one stop for all the material information.What is Material PassportingMaterial passport is a document that keeps the details of the materials which are used in the construction process. This document contains the data which explains the characteristics of materials to be used in construction. Material passport focuses on recovery, recycling and reuse. Identity is provided to the material with the help of Material passport. Like our personal passport, which gives us identity and is required for travelling purposes, the material passport provides identity to the so-called used or waste materials. It allows the material to travel to different locations as per the requirement after it has served its purpose in a building. Material is taken from one site to another site or building with the purpose of reusability. The ethos of material passports is that the earth's resources should not be wasted and must be saved by reusing the materials because our planet is a closed system, and we should not disturb the balance on earth. The resources which we use as raw materials lose their identity and become rubble after one use, this is the current situation going on. In such situations, the rubble can be used in the construction sector by giving materials an identity through a Material Passport.To help monitor the attributes of Material Passports, the electronic Materials Passports developed in BAMB, targets to be a one fixed stop for material information, where all information can be collected at once. Materials Passports which are developed in BAMB collect the detailed data of materials, describing features of materials used in products that give them value for recovery and reuse. In Material passports, all the details of material used in the construction process are taken into account This is carried out so that later when the building is demolished, the materials which were used in the construction process, those can be checked and evaluated and can be reused if found in good and reusable condition. This reduces the wastage and ultimately gives benefits to our pocket and environment as well. Materials Passports is also known as `nutrient certificates'. Essentially, they are made up of critical data on the materials used in products that give them value for recovery and reuse. Just like the nutrient labels on food products, the nutrient certificate also describes the materials, their usability, quality and everything else which is required at the time of reusing the materials in new construction.POSSIBLE USE OF MATERIAL PASSPORT IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY OF SINGAPORE By Eugene Seah, Managing Director, Surbana JurongEugene Seah
< Page 7 | Page 9 >