Introduction, Context, and Motivations of a Circular Economy for Composite Materials

Circular Economy is an emerging production-consumption paradigm showing the potential to recover and re-use functions and materials from post-use, end-of-life, products. Even if several barriers still exist at different levels, from legislation to customer acceptance, the transition to this sustainable industrial model has been demonstrated to potentially bring economic, environmental, and social benefits, at large scale. Composite materials, which usage is constantly increasing, are composed by a fiber reinforcement in a resin matrix. Among them, the most widely adopted are Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics (GFRP) and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP). Their applications range from wind blades to automotive, construction, sporting equipment and furniture. The post-use treatment of composite-made products is still an open challenge. Today, they are either sent to landfill, where not banned, or incinerated. The application of Circular Economy principles may lead to the creation of new circular value-chains aiming at re-using functions and materials from post-use composite-made products in high value-added applications, thus increasing the sustainability of the composite industry as a whole.