Plastic waste presents major recycling opportunity on construction sites

A 14-month pilot that tracked plastics across eight active construction sites successfully demonstrated how these materials can be recovered and reintegrated into new building materials under real-world conditions.

The project, conducted by Light House, an organization focused on advancing regenerative and circular practices in the built environment, took place at eight commercial construction sites in metro Vancouver.

Materials were collected, tracked, sorted, processed, and reintegrated into manufacturing, demonstrating how construction plastics can be recovered and reused in new building materials.

“These projects provided a real-world dataset and one of the clearest pictures to date of how construction plastics are generated, handled, and what can be recovered in practice,” according to a Light House news release. More than 38,000 kilograms of plastic were collected across the sites.

Of the 34,268 kilograms sent for sorting, about 77% was classified for recycling. The strongest results were observed in clean, packaging-related materials such as films and wraps.

About 23% could not be processed due to contamination, handling conditions, or system limitations, despite being technically recyclable. Light House concluded that much of what is lost today is recoverable with the right systems in place.