Just a few months after introducing circular concrete, Dutch company New Horizon Urban Mining is introducing circular bitumen roof tiles next week. The roof tiles look like ordinary roofing tiles, but are made of recycled material, Cobouw.nl reported.
New Horizon is a company that demolishes old buildings and reuses the resulting material. Having previously developed circular concrete by gently grinding demolition concrete, it now saw an opportunity in the bitumen roofing membranes that typically cover many flat roofs of office buildings. Owner Michael Baars came across a factory where the 'demolition roofs' could be converted into new, good-quality bitumen roof tiles, he told Cobouw. "Icopal had been working on this development before, but did not reach the desired level. Therefore, we continued working on it together. Finally, it involved a roofer, ZND in this case, who realises the roofs.
New Horizon takes a calculated approach to collecting demolition material, it reveals in the article. "First, an analysis of the bitumen; mapping how much is lying around. Then samples of it are taken to do research on it. After all, the dismantling process has to be as clean as possible. Then the roofing membranes go into a container bin, which goes to one of our subcontractors and they cut it into bite-sized blocks. These go to Icopal which processes the material into roof tiles." Icopal says it is the only one in the Netherlands with a production line to breathe new life into bitumen. "Because we are now working together, it saves Icopal the cost of collecting material," Baars told Cobouw. "In turn, ZND can claim to be the only roofer in the Netherlands to lay circular roof tiles."
The circular bitumen roof tiles will be presented this week during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. Recently, New Horizon won an Innovation Award at Expo Real in Munich for its circular concrete installation. There is now an installation in Zaandam, but the company wants to add several more by next year. It also wants to start selling the circular concrete internationally.
Source: Cobouw.nl/New Horizon
Photo for illustration (Pexels)
