scope:

This VDI Standard concerns the important aspects of recycling in building services in order to develop an integrated approach with regard to the entire cycle of added value. It focuses in particular on the manufacturers of building services components, the planners, the authorities and clients who invite tenders, the process of construction as well as the transport and waste disposal industries, and urges all parties involved to strengthen co-operation in planning, construction, and use as well as in redevelopment and dismantling in order to implement recycling.

The standard cannot fully consider all the aspects of recycling relating to the cycle of added value for building services components, but is limited to providing example cases in each individual stage in order to raise awareness about recycling.

In the German Life-Cycle Resource Management Act (KrWG) the wide variety of terms concerning waste is reduced to "waste for recycling" and "waste for disposal". Waste disposal is used here as an umbrella term for recycling and disposal. Emphasis is placed on the recycling of substances in which under certain conditions thermal recycling of substances is accorded equal status.

This standard takes into account the recycling of substances and therefore the concept of recycling itself.