If many tons of material were to be stacked to a height of no more than three meters, this would require an area of 30 by 30 kilometers. This is about the size of Germany’s largest island, Rügen, in the Baltic Sea.
Professor Hamid Sadegh-Azar, a professor at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, believes that not all ash and debris should be disposed of, some rubbish can be recycled.
According to him, the steel can be extracted from the construction rubble, melted down and reused. If the concrete is of good quality, it can be crushed and recycled. However, the use of salt water and poor quality additives in the construction makes recycling difficult.
Materials such as poor quality masonry, plaster or concrete that are no longer usable are taken to landfills outside cities or to open areas. Construction rubble does not pose serious environmental risks unless asbestos was used in it, according to UN experts.