Building Industry

Plastics represent significant global potential for the building sector. Their features and adaptability regarding required functionality means that they are unavoidable.

From foundations to roofing, plastics are found everywhere in energy-efficient, long-lasting, aesthetically-pleasing buildings that comply with environmental, thermal and fire-safety regulations.Plastics are mainly used for joints, moulded sections (windows and doors), pipes, cables, floor coverings and insulation.

Building applications constitute almost 21% of the market for plastics use in Europe. (Source: http://www.plasticseurope.org/). This sector is the second largest user of plastics after the packaging sector.

The future of the building industry lies in developing intelligent buildings with greater energy efficiency, and in developing prefabrication techniques (in factories, far from building sites). The use of plastics in this sector, as opposed to traditional materials, is becoming increasingly legitimate.

The important issues for integrating plastics in the building sector are:

• Corrosion resistance,
• Improving energy efficiency,
• Versatility of potential applications,
• Making structures lighter (excellent weight to quality ratio) by using non-metal materials,
• Material durability,
• Material maintenance,Mmaterial recycling.

Did you know?

One kilogram of plastic enables CO2 emission to be reduced by up to 755 kg during the lifetime of a building.