Optimizing Waste Management in Construction: A Policy Development Approach for Sustainable Practices

Sustainability

The construction industry is known as one of the biggest generators of solid waste. Considering this, attention needs to be paid to construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Lebanon has experienced many situations that have increased the generation of C&D waste. Therefore, it is essential to manage C&D waste. This research aims to assess and analyse the importance of waste management plans and their impact on the generation of construction and demolition waste in Lebanon. For this purpose, an extensive literature review has been carried out, and a questionnaire survey consisting of five sections has been developed. Factors were ranked by using 5-point Likert scales. Additionally, four optional open-ended questions were also included in the survey for qualitative data collection. A survey questionnaire was sent to 80 Lebanese experts, and 50 questionnaires were returned. Most of the responses (i.e., consultants and academics) were from the private sector; results showed that responden...

Construction wastes have become a pressing issue in many developing countries and have adverse effects on environment, economy and social aspects. Illegal dumping is a common issue created from the physical construction waste and besides that non physical waste like cost and time overruns are not properly addressed among the construction players. This paper explores the impacts of construction on sustainable construction and contributing causes which will help the practitioners to formulate ways in avoiding or reducing the waste. It also highlights the sustainable approach in managing the construction waste as practice.

Sustainability, 2022

The construction industry is a vital part of every nation’s economy. Construction activities influence the social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainability. There are so many barriers to sustainable construction and demolition waste management (C&DWM). This study aims to identify barriers for effective sustainable C&DWM in developed and developing countries. To achieve the objective, 11 barriers have been selected and identified based on an excessive and comprehensive literature review, and then reviewed by experts. These reviewed barriers were further examined by various experts within different organizations using a questionnaire survey. Ranking of the barriers was carried out using the Relative Importance Index (RI), and the results were statistically analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Practical solutions were proposed to overcome the identified barriers. The overall ranking of barriers by RI indicates that insufficient attention paid to C&DWM, lack of law enforcement, lack of regulation, and financial constraints represent the four major barriers to sustainable C&DWM in these countries. The findings of this study and the proposed solutions are enablers for decision-makers to develop effective strategies to tackle construction and demolition wastes in sustainable manners.

The Malaysian construction industry continues to grow, benefiting the country's economy and providing essential infrastructure. However, this thriving industry is responsible for one of the single largest waste streams in the country. This paper focuses on the current status of waste management in the Malaysian construction sector. It builds on existing research and assesses the level of sustainable practices on construction sites in terms of waste management. It is a reflective paper examining the attitudes and reaction of Malaysian contractors towards a more structured approach to on-site sustainable resource and waste management, the "Site Waste Management Plan". The Site Waste Management Plan, is a framework that has been used in Europe and has successfully reduced on-site construction waste generation. The aim of this study is to gauge the industry's appetite and commitment to sustainable waste management and ultimately guide the future development of a framework for the management of construction wastes in Malaysia. A number of semistructured interviews were conducted with Malaysian contractors, with no previous experience of Site Waste Management Plans. This exercise allowed the researchers to explore the industry's level of awareness and commitment to sustainable waste management, identify current barriers and suggest future recommendations for an implementation strategy.

MATEC Web of Conferences, 2019

The construction sector is responsible for providing fundamental physical structure required for living and survival of human life. Increased development works have led in resulting the massive amount of waste generation in developing countries. Due to poor management system on sites, it has become more crucial and exerts several negative impacts on society and the environment. This Unused waste material has a negative impact on the ecosystem and needs a considerable amount of money for recycling, reusing and disposal of the waste. Like other developing countries Pakistan is spending a significant portion of its GDP on handling construction waste. Among the several other factors, the key contributes are highlighted in this study. This study is exploratory work investigating the types of construction waste generated on site and their relative impact of the project cost in construction projects of Pakistan. Through questionnaire the opinion of clients, consultant and constructor have ...

2018

Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste is one of the most voluminous and harmful categories of solid waste worldwide, comprising 40% of the total volume of global waste. Waste minimisation is essential for sustainable waste management for environmental, social and economic benefits. Libya has particularly egregious C&D waste due to prolific and unregulated construction activities and conflict, and defective C&D waste management. This study presents a framework for sustainable construction and demolition waste management (SC&DWM) in the Libyan context. A critical analysis of different barriers affecting SC&DWM and strategies to overcome them are presented based on a combination of literature review and mixed methods research. During the first phase, questionnaires were distributed face-to-face to four different groups: the general public, two groups of experts and policy maker. The second phase involved a focus group discussion (FGD) to produce additional beneficial supporting data, particularly from experts, in order to strengthen the outcomes of the study. Data analysis revealed that the main barrier to SC&DWM in Libya is the lack of C&D waste management facilities, while the least important barrier was producing unrecyclable materials from construction activities. The key strategy for SC&DWM is increasing awareness of negative impacts of C&D waste and the positive influence of sustainable practices for organizational and national economics. The developed framework presents a coherent and systematic approach and identified strategies that could be used to address these barriers and lead to SC&DWM, including options available for SC&DWM, capacity building, implementation and enforcement and evaluation and reviewing. The practical implication of the findings is that Libyan central government, municipalities and organizations need clear vision, approaches and practices to achieve SC&DWM. To validate this research findings, internal and external sources were adopted. In addition, respondent validation technique was used to evaluate the framework. Respondents believed that this framework tailored to the Libyan circumstances and the framework is appropriate enough to obtain SC&DWM practices in the case study. The study also provides a range of targeted recommendations for SC&DWM in Libya to improve efficiency. Further work is necessary to implement construction waste management and waste management at the industrial level, as well as identifying the actual quantity C&D waste so far, and its composition and distribution in Libya. III

2020

The construction industry is one of the major wealth-generating industries and is seen as an elevated sector in the Malaysia economy. However, this activity has generated a significant amount of waste which is detrimental to the environment. The increasing amount of waste from construction projects has shown that construction waste management has not been practised effectively in Malaysia. Therefore, an overview of the composition of construction waste and existing waste management practices on construction sites in Malaysia are the highlights of this study. The findings can potentially be used to enhance the effectiveness of construction waste management in Malaysia and create awareness among contractors for a better alternative in managing the construction waste on-site. Current practices in the construction sector need to be analysed in order to enhance strategies so that improved and more sustainable design, development, operation and maintenance will be attained, leading to min...

The construction industry is known to generate substantial amount of wastes. The issue should be a cause for concern because reducing amount of wastes generated from a very diverse industry like construction is a great challenge. The industry involves many parties from the clients, suppliers, consultants, contractors to government bodies that make policy and initiate legislations to ensure proper waste management by all practitioners. This study was a preliminary effort to develop a survey framework to assess level of waste control practices on construction sites in Malaysia subject to the local legislations and regulations on waste disposal, and whether they are on par with sustainable best practices in the developed countries. Questionnaires were distributed to 50 practitioners who worked for contractors engaged in various types of construction projects in Kuching, Malaysia. The list of contractors was obtained from the CIDB directory. The selected respondents were knowledgeable o...

International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics, 2012

This study identifies, documents, and assesses the existing levels of awareness and implementation of sustainability practices amongst the different participants in the Lebanese construction industry. The analysis is based on a survey of owners, designers, and contractors supplemented with four case studies illustrating the recycling of construction demolition waste (CDW). The results indicate an acceptable level of awareness, but a mediocre level of implementation of sustainable practices which were limited to green design efforts and uncoordinated attempts at recycling construction demolition materials. The study concludes with recommendations on how to 1 further improve awareness regarding sustainable practices amongst the various stakeholders in the Lebanese construction industry 2 overcome some of the obstacles preventing higher recycling rates.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT, 2015

Construction industry is one of the main contributors to waste streams in Malaysia. Construction activities caused a significant amount of construction waste increased since over the last two decades. Despite of being a waste contributor, construction waste has also been result into serious environmental issues in Malaysia. There are some actions been taken by the government but the results have not been translated in the form of strong legal instruments and enforcement. Therefore, it is important for government to address this issue by providing the legal instrument pertaining to construction waste minimization. This research has been conducted to proposed framework of implementation government initiative on construction waste minimization in Malaysia. Hence, this paper present the existing initiative by the government pertaining to construction waste minimization in Malaysian construction industry. Mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative research design by way of semi-structured interviews and supported by distribution of questionnaire for validation stage have been adopted in this research for proposing the framework of implementation government initiative on construction waste minimization in Malaysia. Results indicate that the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation and Construction Industry Development Board responsible to provide guidelines pertaining to construction waste minimization in Malaysia. The findings maybe used in the formulation of government initiative in addressing the construction waste minimization problem in Malaysia and indirectly improving the quality of construction waste management in Malaysia.

The Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) consistently rank among the top 10% of per capita waste producers in the world. Collectively around 120 million tons of waste is produced annually in GCC; 55% construction and demolition (C&D) waste, 20% municipal solid waste (MSW), 18% industrial waste, and 7% hazardous waste. Like other GCC nations, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) generates massive amounts of MSW, C&D waste, and industrial waste. This study aims to examine 81 construction companies in the Eastern Province of KSA to determine which factors critically affect the sustainable management of C&D waste in the country. Only 39.5% of the companies studied had a pollution control plan for their projects. It was also found that only 13.6% of C&D waste is recycled and reused every year, whereas the remaining 86.4% C&D waste eventually goes to the landfills. Most of the C&D waste in the country is a promising source of potential recyclable construction materials such as gravel from debris, metals, and sand. This would not only fulfill the requirements of gravel and metal production of the KSA but also solve the waste disposal issues along with generating huge economic benefits. However, to accomplish the goal of sustainable construction waste management, it is critical to underline the various factors that might impact the construction waste management practices in the country. Keywords Construction and demolition (C&D) waste · Municipal solid waste (MSW) · Waste recycling · Landfill sites · Sustainable construction material

Construction waste management (CWM) has received worldwide attention for some time. As a result, a plethora of research, investigating a wide array of CWM issues such as their profiles, practices, and performance, has been reported in individual economies around the globe. However, a cross-jurisdictional comparison of these issues is limitedly presented in the literature despite its importance to benchmarking performance and identifying best CWM practices in the context of globalization whereby knowledge sharing has already transcended traditional country boundaries. The aim of this ex post facto research is to compare CWM profiles, practices, and performance in Australia, Europe (Europe refers to EU-27 member countries in the European Union,, and the United Kingdom at a national-level, with a view to facilitating CWM knowledge sharing internationally. It does so by triangulating empirical data collected from various national statistical yearbooks with research papers and professional reports on CWM in these economies. It is found that in producing one million (US) dollars' work, construction contributes a volume of solid waste ranging from 28 to 121 tons among countries. Conscientious CWM practices can make a significant difference in reducing, reusing, or recycling construction waste, as evident in the large variation in the CWM performance. While it might be oversimplified to conclude that the best practices in one country can be applied in another, the research provides insightful references into sharing CWM knowledge across boundaries.

Jurnal Teknologi, 2016

Rapid growth in construction activities in Kuala Lumpur resulted in increasing of construction waste problems. Construction waste gives a negative impact to the environment, cost, time, productivity and social of the country. This paper studies the challenges of construction waste management faced by the contractors undertake projects in Kuala Lumpur. Eighty five (85) numbers of questionnaires were distributed to various groups of respondents which include main contractors, registered contractor for collection of waste, Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) officers and Solid Waste Corporation (SWCorp) officers. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient analysis, mean ranking analysis, Kruskal-Wallis test, and factor analysis are among the analysis used in this study. In addition correlation test were also conducted to establish the correlation between the factors. The result shows that the factor influenced in successful implementation of Construction waste management (CWM) for DBKL project...

2005

There is an increasing awareness and interest in the need for sustainable construction in many countries. Compared to the high income countries, developing countries might be able to establish socioeconomic growth with lower levels of pollution, because of today's global concern and research knowledge about environmental quality and the availability of cleaner technologies. Research carried out in various countries with different development level by scholars at the Eindhoven University of Technology aims at getting a better understanding of response policies and actions as well as mechanisms at work in dealing with construction waste. In Chile-which is an emerging country-the attention for the environment grew the last 10 years, although environmentally sustainable building practices are still in a starting up phase. Sustainable construction became a policy issue in the Netherlands in the 1990s, although the measures to meet the targets of sustainable construction are not adopted on a large scale since then. Major bottlenecks for sustainable construction appeared to be the awareness and interest among the stakeholders. Policies could boost sustainable construction by stimulating the awareness among stakeholders and encourage actions to incorporate sustainability considerations in integrated design, engineering and execution of construction projects.

Jurnal Teknologi, 2015

Graphical abstract Abstract Construction is one of the industries that able to generate wealth to the country and also contributes to the development of social and economic infrastructure. Lack of implementation of waste management practice in construction site is one of the problems to the construction industry in reducing environmental impacts and dumping areas. A higher demand for new developments causes the increase of construction activities which results in a significant impact on the environment. Hence, the aim of this paper is to highlight the Malaysian government strategies in the implementation of initiatives on construction waste management in Malaysia. In accordance with the stated aim, this paper intends to explore the initiatives implementation by the governing authorities to manage construction waste in Malaysia. This paper presents the implementation of Malaysian government initiatives in managing construction waste. The qualitative research method was applied to explore the existing implementation by the government in order to manage construction waste. Results indicates that the obligations of governing authorities in implementing the initiatives pertaining to construction waste management is inconsistent.