Preliminary studies on recycling cardboard packaging into building products

Cardboard is among the most widely used material to make packaging for goods and products, often used with a short life cycle. Study of literature shows how fiber obtained from pulp in the recycling process can be used in different fields, and numerous experiments are underway. One of the fields of interest is the construction industry, but there has been a strong lack of structured studies about the performance of new products from the recycling process and about impacts during life. For this reason, two corrugated cardboard panels for architectural and insulation use, obtained from recycled material, were designed and tested. Insulating properties have been the subject of previous studies while Life Cycle Assessment, acoustic and mechanical tests were carried out, which provided promising results. In particular, from an acoustic point of view, the panels have proven to be effective mainly at low frequencies. From a mechanical point of view, the stress-strain curves are comparable to those of other studies, although the numerical results are strongly influenced by environmental conditions as well as the manufacturing process. Finally, the LCA analysis highlighted very low impact values, also thanks to the recycling of the product at the end of its life.