On the 13th of October 2021, a workshop was organised as part of a special session at the 18th International Symposium On Waste Management And Sustainable Landfilling: Sardinia 2021. This workshop was titled “Management of C&D Waste” and was organised by Oumaya Marzouk of CEREMA (France), together with Prof. Di Mino of the University of Palermo (Italy) and Issam Srour from the American University of Beirut (Lebanon).

The workshop was delivered by the RE-MED project which objective is "To initiate the construction of a recycling chain for Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste to make it a lever for the societal, environment and digital transition of the Mediterranean territories" and, therefore, this workshop’s aim was to encourage the use of construction and demolition waste in road construction, and sustainable development in the road sector, by disseminating the requisite knowledge to those in a position to realise this goal.

Experts from international research centres, road authorities, universities, government agencies, consultancy groups, and companies in the road construction sector were involved and over the course of the one and a half hour workshop, six experts presented their research, their technical expertise, and their experience in this sector to the conference’s participants both in presence and online.

The keynote presentation was given by Mr. Mounir MAJDOUB, a senior economist and environmental and sustainable development policies specialist, who has experience working with multiple government bodies including when he held the post of Secretary of State for environment and sustainable development in the Tunisian government. His presentation focussed on the socio-economic aspects surrounding the move to a circular economy through the use of C&D waste.

Following this, shorter presentations of ten minutes were given by:

• Francesco Ruggeri, director of new constructions at the Italian national road authority (ANAS), whose presentation “An Italian full-scale application of Circular Economic model from a Road Authority point of view: Valorisation of secondary raw materials” discussed many legislative and practical aspects to the introduction of recycled C&D waste in road construction.
• Zakaria Jaouadi, manager of the Respect Environment Group, a non-government advisory body, who gave a presentation on the “Production of recycled aggregates: feedback from a recycling plant in Tunisia”
• Gisella Mammo Zagarella. Chief executive officer at Calcestruzzi Ericina Libera. Her presentation concerned “The recycled materials in the road construction industry:  EU legislation and its implementation in Italy towards the green transition”.
• Jamel Neji, professor at the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis who gave a presentation analysing the data from Tunisia regarding road construction and C&D waste.
• Oumaya Marzouk, the director of circular economic projects at CEREMA and the coordinator of the REMED project, who gave a presentation on Cooperation as a potential solution.

After the interesting presentations of the speakers, there was a fervent exchange of opinions and questions on the topics touched upon, with particular reference to how to develop circular economic models in the field of road construction. The issue of how, in reality, it is possible to implement these models, whether this comes in the form of a top-down movement starting from a strictly normative regulation or if the bottom-up process; starting from examples of proven applications in the field is preferable. In conclusion, the idea was reached that both processes lead to the success of circular economy in the road industry sector, if they support each other. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage every single initiative of recycling of materials considered to be waste and at the same time define technical standards that are more receptive to the environmental and economic needs of the individual realities, for the countries on each of the shores of the Mediterranean.

In closing, the 18th International Symposium On Waste Management And Sustainable Landfilling: Sardinia 2021, provided a valuable opportunity to disseminate the work being conducted by the members of the REMED project, we are grateful to the organisers of the conference for giving us this valuable opportunity to organise a workshop and we are eternally grateful to all of the participants for their engagement and the spirited question and answer session which followed