THE CONCEPT OF END OF WASTE IN VIEW OF DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE SECONDARY RAW MATERIALS

The concept of end of waste, adopted by the European Commission on December 2005, regards under which conditions a waste could cease to be waste and could be regarded as a non-waste material. This is a revolutionary way to think of wastes not just as refuse to be dismissed but as secondary raw material to be exploited, with an enormous social and economic impact. In this scenario, the creativity of materialsscientists is highly stimulated and the key to success is the development of innovative and sustainable means to transform a waste into a secondary raw material of potential economic value. To this aim, stimulus comes from the so called geo-inspiring materials. This contribution presents the results of a long-term project aimed to recycle asbestos containing materials (ACMs), into secondary raw materials for various industrial applications. The high temperature product of transformation of ACM can be successfully recycled in clay bricks, rock-wool, glass–ceramics, ceramic pigments[1], geopolymers [2], concrete [3], and recently also for innovative formulations of calcium sulfoaluminate cement clinkers [4 ] and magnesium phosphate cements [5].