Marble waste sustainable re-use: future prospect for Custonaci marble basin in Sicily

Abstract

In Italy, the marble industry is one of the most productive sectors in terms of quality and quantity of material exported. However, after the economic crisis of 2008 and the COVID19 pandemic, production and export numbers have experienced a significant reduction. This is particularly true for Sicily and the area of Custonaci (Trapani, TP). In this area numerous quarries had to temporarily halt mining operations due to the lack of demand from the market and the reluctance of most entrepreneurs to modify and improve their production lines. Nevertheless, the sector’s most pressing issue is the massive quantity of waste generated during cutting and processing. These wastes are left to pile up in the land next to the sawmills, even if, according to the current Italian legislation, they should be moved to dedicated landfills. Unfortunately, this operation rarely happens as its cost is prohibitively high. Moreover, the intensive extraction activity has a massive impact on the landscape. As a result, in the past few years, researchers have started to find alternative use to this by-product in a variety of industries including construction, fashion and agriculture. Marble quarry waste is already widely used in construction to manufacture aggregate for cementitious matrixes as well as artificial stone, where marble waste is used as mineral filler within a polymeric matrix. The new challenge is to combine marble waste with either a bio-based or a recyclable material, in order to reduce the use of virgin materials and to ensure a further reuse. This works proposes an overview of the state of the art in terms of current legislation, patents and products with marble waste and it paves the way to an experimentation with marble waste from Custonaci marble basin (namely Perlato and Perlatino di Sicilia) by mixing it with either a biodegradable polymer (PLA or PVA) or a recyclable polymer such as nylon, coming from dismissed fishing nets.