After 14 months of tracking plastics across eight active construction projects in Metro Vancouver, Light House is releasing findings on what can be recovered and recycled, based on one of the first real-world datasets in North America tracking construction plastics from job sites to reuse across multiple active projects.
Across participating sites, more than 38,000 kilograms of plastic were collected. Of the 34,268 kilograms sent for sorting, approximately 77 per cent was successfully classified for recycling. The strongest results were observed in clean, packaging-related materials such as films and wraps. Approximately 23 per cent could not be processed due to contamination, handling conditions, or system limitations, despite being technically recyclable, showing that much of what is lost today is recoverable with the right systems in place.
Launched by Light House in 2024, the Construction Plastics Initiative (CPI) was created to address a major gap in how plastic waste is understood and managed in construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) activities.
Delivered in partnership with contractors including Aecon, EllisDon, and Scott Construction, the study followed plastics across major projects including the Holdom Overpass Project in Burnaby, PNE Amphitheatre, Steveston Community Centre and Library, Cloverly School, Amazon and Microsoft tenant improvement projects, and Lynn Fripps Elementary School. Together, these projects provided a real-world dataset and one of the clearest pictures to date of how construction plastics are generated, handled, and what can be recovered in practice.
“We started this as a pilot to better understand construction plastics, but what it reveals is a much larger opportunity for the industry. There is a consistent and recoverable stream of material being generated across projects, and this work begins to show how that could be captured and kept in use at a much broader scale,” said Gil Yaron, managing director of Circular Innovation at Light House.
Building on these findings, the pilot also demonstrated how these materials can be put back into use. Plastics recovered through CPI were processed into recycled pellets and supplied to Plascon Plastics, where they were used to manufacture components for InfinaNet, a structural system developed by Infina Technologies developed by Vancouver-based Infina Technologies, a venture supported through Light House’s Circular Construction Accelerator (CCA). InfinaNet reduces the amount of concrete required in floor slabs for multi-unit residential projects by up to 30 per cent, illustrating how recovered materials can support more efficient and lower-carbon construction.
The Government of Canada, through PacifiCan, has invested over $1 million in CCA to accelerate the growth of green building companies in B.C.
