Scarce building materials make the construction of apartments and roads even more expensive. According to business associations, local raw materials that are also stored in Hesse could help.
Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - In the fight against rising construction costs, the Hessian companies are demanding easier extraction of local raw materials such as sand, gravel and stones. In addition, the use of recycled building materials must be promoted more and the local disposal of rubble must be secured, said the Association of Hessian Business Associations (VhU) on Monday in Wiesbaden. Among other things, the country must speed up the approval process for quarries and pits.
"Economic supply of the construction industry with regional mineral raw materials is a contribution to dampening the rising costs of housing construction," said VhU Vice President Thomas Reimann. In Hesse there is a demand for around 50 million tons of mineral raw materials per year - of which only 35 million tons are also extracted in the state. Reimann pointed out that short transport routes also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The managing director of the Steine und Erden industrial association, Philipp Rosenberg, called for greater acceptance of recycled building materials. The public sector should be a role model here and rely more on reused building materials in tenders. For example, 78 percent of construction waste and 93 percent of road rubble are currently recycled, Rosenberg said. However, legal requirements made it difficult to use recycled building materials.
The state chairman of the Association of the Construction and Raw Materials Industry (vero), Christoph Hagemeier, called on the state government and state parliament to secure sufficient areas as priority areas for raw material extraction. "Mineral resources are tied to location," he said. New biotopes or leisure areas are often created on the mining areas.
The general manager of the employers' association Steine und Erden Hessen-Thüringen, Matthias Schlotmann, pointed out that five million tons of raw materials from Ukraine and Russia had been imported into the EU to date. In view of the war, these raw materials were lacking - also in Hesse - and had to be replaced.
