Data and methodologies for a resource-efficient planning of primary and secondary aggregates in South East Europe (SEE) countries

Recent, complete and reliable statistics on sources and quantities of primary and secondary aggregates, actual recycling rates, and the over- all aggregates requirements for the construction industry are core to resource-efficient planning. In the absence of such data, the objectives of the plan may be difficult or impossible to achieve, or plans created may be unrealistic or even counter-productive. It is therefore necessary to determine the degree to which these data are available, under whose jurisdiction their collec- tion, storage, and reporting falls, and whether they are currently used in planning. This is also the case in most South East Europe (SEE) coun- tries where, however, secondary aggregates are often not considered in planning for aggregates supply. The contribution of this paper is mostly focused on the definition of aggregates and the strategy to estimate the contribution of uncon- ventional aggregates, for which data gaps and uncertainties are clearly a bottleneck.