From waste to building material: what is working, and what could Australia do next?

Turning waste into building material is already happening, in Australia and overseas. A Brussels cooperative resells salvaged doors and floors. A partnership involving Shoalhaven City Council, UNSW and Kandui Technologies brought a factory online in October 2023 to turn waste glass and textiles into ceramic products. Australian-made panels are produced from recovered packaging. What these examples show is that reuse and recycling can be run as businesses. What they do not yet show is how far each can scale, how it performs over decades, or whether it is the best use of the waste. This feature explains what is working, how to explore it, and which questions matter. As everywhere on Circular Abundance, we ask: who benefits, and what makes these improvements accessible?

The reviewed sources behind these examples, with who made each one and what we checked, are in Waste to building material: a starting resource list.

Four different things that get called "circular"

These terms are often blurred, and they keep different amounts of the original value.

• Direct reuse: a component is taken out intact and used again for the same or a similar job. A door, a floorboard, a light fitting.
• Repair: a component is fixed so it can keep doing its job.
• Remanufacturing: a component is stripped, restored and rebuilt to a defined standard, often by a business that tests and warrants it.
• Recycling: the material is broken down and made into something new. The original shape and the work that went into making it are lost.

As a general principle, the more intact a component stays, the more of its original value is kept, because the energy and labour already spent are not repeated. That is our reasoning, not a measured result for every case. It does not always hold: a reused part may perform worse than a new one for energy efficiency or safety, and some materials are best recycled. The useful question is whether a component could keep doing its job before anyone processes it.

What is working

Each example below is described using what the organisation or its partners say, which shows what is on offer, not independent proof of environmental benefit, durability or commercial success.

Direct reuse as a business: Rotor DC, Brussels

Rotor DC is an employee-owned cooperative. It dismantles, processes and sells salvaged building components, mainly finishing materials such as hardware, doors, flooring, furniture and lighting. It began in 2014, now also sells materials from demolition contractors and real estate companies, and says many items cost less than new ones of the same quality. It will not take part in demolition projects before they have permits, and it requires proof of ownership for materials it accepts (Rotor DC, About us). It publishes no sales or tonnage figures, so its scale of impact is unknown. What it demonstrates is that the practical work (sourcing, cleaning, describing, storing and delivering used components) can support a trading business.

Designing around what is available: Superuse Studios, Netherlands

Superuse is a Dutch design studio. An Ellen MacArthur Foundation case study (5 October 2021) says it applies a strategy of reusing materials with minimal change in about 90% of its 180 projects. Its flagship, Villa Welpeloo (2005), is described as built from about 60% salvaged material, including steel from textile machinery and façade timber from 200 damaged cable reels. The studio also created Harvest Map, an open online tool that shows nearby pools of materials, and the case study notes such platforms work best at a regional scale (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2021). The percentages are the studio's own. The idea worth borrowing is that design and material sourcing can happen together, so what is locally available shapes the design.

Panels from recovered packaging: saveBOARD, Australia

saveBOARD makes building panels from recovered packaging. Its Multi-Use panel is certified under the Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) panel boards standard and is listed as made from shredded composite packaging, wood fibre and soft plastics, for short-to-medium-term utility uses such as hoardings and protection (GECA listing). The company's range is broader: its manufacturer page lists applications including internal linings, external bracing and ceiling tiles (saveBOARD, products). Treat those as manufacturer-listed applications. Each product needs its own check: GECA is an environmental certification, not building-code approval, and it does not make a product suitable for structural use. For any specific use, ask for the product's technical documentation and compliance evidence.

Waste glass and textiles into ceramics: Green Ceramics, New South Wales

Researchers at UNSW's Sustainable Materials and Technology (SMaRT) Centre developed a small-scale "MICROfactorie" that turns waste glass, textiles and mattresses, which are usually hard to recycle, into ceramic tiles and panels used in interiors, furniture and decorative applications (UNSW SMaRT Centre). An article by UNSW's Veena Sahajwalla, published on 12 June 2024 (originally by 360info), says the Shoalhaven MICROfactorie, developed with the local council and Kandui Technologies, went online in October 2023 and "can process around 450 tonnes of glass, mattresses and other textiles per year" (UNSW / 360info, 2024). That 450 tonnes is a stated capacity, not measured annual output, and whether the facility is still operating and what it produces in 2026 are separate questions we have not confirmed. The material is described as "high performance, non-toxic" by the developer, with no test data on the page, and its uses are mainly interior and decorative, so it is not evidence for structural use.

Small-scale plastic recycling: Precious Plastic, worldwide

Precious Plastic provides free, open-source designs for plastic recycling machines, along with tutorials and business tools. A Euronews report of 20 July 2025 cites more than 2,000 registered initiatives in 56 countries and about 1,400 tonnes of plastic recycled in a year, and records the limits: reliance on volunteers, activity that drops after each new version, and the fact that virgin plastic is often cheaper (Euronews, 2025). It is a good source of process knowledge and community examples. Products made this way should not be assumed to meet building requirements.

What these examples are for

The reason to care is concrete. Each example is a way of trying to do one or more of four things:

• Keep useful materials in circulation, so a door, a board or a pile of glass has another life instead of going to landfill.
• Reduce demand for new resources, because a reused or recycled input can replace some virgin material.
• Support practical reuse, by building the sourcing, cleaning, testing and selling that makes used components easy to buy.
• Open local opportunities, such as a regional facility using the waste a region already produces.

These are the aims, and the evidence for each varies. Rotor DC says many of its items cost less than new ones of the same quality, which is a price claim, not a measured saving to every buyer. For the others, whether a waste-derived product has a lower environmental impact than the product it replaces depends on what it replaces, how far it travels, how it is made and how long it lasts, which is why we ask for life cycle evidence instead of assuming a recycled product is better. Who benefits also depends on access: a reused component helps a household only if it is available, documented and priced so that people can use it.

What the Australian numbers show

The most recent national waste report is the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2026, dated 22 September 2026 and covering 2024–25. It reports 67.5% resource recovery and 64.1% recycling. For construction and demolition waste it reports 31.1 million tonnes generated and 25.2 million tonnes recycled, which is about 81% by our arithmetic (DCCEEW, 2026).

Three cautions go with these figures:

• Resource recovery is broader than reuse or recycling. The report's recovery measure also includes energy recovery, which covers landfill-gas capture and anaerobic digestion as well as thermal processes. Recycling is reported separately.
• Classifications differ. The construction and demolition figures are for the report's source stream. The report also has a separate "building and demolition materials" category, which is a classification by material and is not the same thing. Do not mix the two.
• Earlier figures use different years. The ABS reports 66% recovery for 2022–23, up from 61% in 2016–17, against a target of 80% by 2030 under the Circular Economy Framework (2024) (ABS, Circular economy). We have not checked whether the 2022–23 and 2024–25 figures are calculated identically.

Australia's circularity rate is a different measure again. The ABS reports a circularity rate of around 4.3% in 2024, the same as 2023 and up from 3.7% in 2010. It describes this as the proportion of secondary materials used in the economy over a year, and also reports a global rate of 6.9% from the Circularity Gap Report 2025 (same ABS page). Eurostat reports a circular material use rate of 32.7% for the Netherlands in 2024, the highest in the EU, against 12.2% for the EU (Eurostat, 19 November 2025). Our editorial assessment: both describe the contribution of recycled or secondary materials to total material use, but we have not checked whether the accounting methods and boundaries match, so we do not compare 4.3% with 32.7%. The open question is comparability, not whether an Australian estimate exists. Neither figure should be compared with the 67.5% recovery rate, which measures the share of waste recovered.

How to assess a product made from waste

The percentage of recycled content tells you little by itself. Where evidence exists, ask:

• What is it for? Which application, and what relevant testing or certification covers that use?
• How does it perform? Durability, maintenance, fire and moisture behaviour.
• What does it cost to use? Price, installation requirements and where it is available.
• What are the environmental claims based on? Is there an environmental product declaration or life cycle assessment, and what does it include and leave out?
• What happens next? Can it be repaired, taken apart or taken back, and what is the actual next-life option?

Be cautious with "carbon negative", "zero waste" and "fully recyclable". They are claims until the supporting evidence and its conditions are shown. A process shown in a demonstration video is not an approved construction method.

Where to start

If you are a homeowner

• Before a renovation, list what is coming out (doors, fittings, timber, tiles) and ask whether any can be reused on site or offered for resale before it is skipped.
• If you buy salvaged or waste-derived materials, ask your builder or designer what each is approved for and request the documentation.
• For a product with an environmental claim, ask what it is based on.

If you are a builder or designer

• Ask for deconstruction or salvage to be priced as an alternative to demolition.
• Check each reclaimed or waste-derived product's compliance pathway for its specific use. Do not assume a certification covers another application.
• Keep records of where materials came from and how they were tested, so they can be reused again.

If you are a community group or business exploring reuse

• Start with one material stream you can see locally, and find out how much there is, in what condition, and who already collects it.
• Talk to existing salvage and recycling businesses before building something new.
• Look at small-scale examples such as Precious Plastic for process knowledge, and at Rotor DC for how a reuse business is organised.

Possible market opportunities (questions to investigate)

These are questions, not findings. None is established unmet demand, and none is an investment recommendation.

• Salvage and resale before demolition.
• Sorting, cleaning and preparing consistent inputs for manufacturers.
• Regional production using locally available waste.
• Testing, documentation and sourcing services for reclaimed materials.
• Repair, take-back and reuse services.

For each, we would ask: what material is available, in what quantity and condition? Who would buy the output? What existing businesses already serve that need? What are the processing, transport, testing and compliance costs? The opportunity may be better coordination or services, not a new material or factory.

Where energy fits

Cheaper renewable generation and storage could support more affordable manufacturing and services, including recycling and remanufacturing. Whether they do depends on local conditions and implementation. See Future & Foresight and Energy & Storage.

Keep exploring

The starting resource list gathers the sources used here, with who produced each, any commercial interest and the limits of what we checked.

Evidence note

The examples are starting points, not independently tested products or businesses. Information about companies and projects is what they say about themselves, and the Australian data comes from the sources linked above. We have not reviewed life cycle assessments, technical test results or installed costs for any product. Operating status can change, so check current details before relying on them. Sources were checked on 8 November 2026. This is an early version, published so that it can be corrected and improved. See the Research Notebook for how we label work in progress.