Construction Waste Management Methods

Abstract

The research in this paper is directed on recycling as the sustainability of environment has been considered as the purpose of the construction waste management methods or plans. The important of sources of construction waste in Hong Kong is from housing development as according to Sang, W. W. & Chan, E. H. (Eds.) (2000, p.123) as the city’s housing authority is one of the largest home makers in the world. The editors quote that the authority has built 870000 flats and is about to complete 270000 flats in the coming five years. As the authority has the ambitious housing production targets to achieve, the housing industry is main source of construction waste in Hong Kong. Thus the aim of the essay is to review and discuss the construction waste management methods that collect, sort out different materials and deliver them to recycling units.

The methods of construction waste management in this paper also discuss mentions the market for recycled building materials, which are produced from construction waste. Hence, the aim of essay is not only to get rid of the construction waste but also the sustainability of environment and construction industry. Thus the review of literature establishes the necessity of construction waste management methods implemented by municipal administrations that are a mix of waste collection, transportation and recycling. The legislations for construction waste management are also reviewed and are emphasized to have a sustainable environment as well as an industry. The methodology underlines the way the research, analysis and discussion will be done and a questionnaire was prepared to pose for stakeholders of construction industry. The recommendations quote the construction waste management plan of Hong Kong that has a refuse collection centre between the site and recycling units, which is maintained by demolition or construction contractors. Recommendations stress the necessity of network between sources of waste and recycling units.

Introduction

The paper consists of literature review and analysis of the relevant literature about construction waste management. The literature review starts with the necessity of construction waste management plans for the sustainability of environment. The sustainability of environment is to enhance the construction activities without disturbing the carrying capacity of resources as well as the environment. While reviewing the literature in that manner, the necessity of waste management plans and the activities involved in waste management policies, strategies and procedures are reviewed citing some successful waste management plans. In this regard, the examples of solid waste management methods and policies followed by different municipal administrations are cited and the way they can be applied for the construction waste management. The review of literature regarding waste management starts with innovative management of waste as well as categorization of waste.

After categorization the doubts of necessity of waste management are cleared with the review of researches done on that topic. The next sub chapter of literature review enters into the crucial and important aspect of this paper, which is about sustainability of environment as well as the construction industry. At this juncture, the waste generated from construction activities is mentioned and decides that recycling of those wastes is necessary for the reduction of use of resources that are significant in production of building materials used for construction. After emphasizing the recycling option the review explains the importance of legislation construction waste management as well as the necessity of the presence of recycling economy. In the next chapter of methodology the way adopted for research is explained and the questionnaire, the answers of which appear at the beginning of the Analysis/discussion chapter are listed. After that the answers for those questions are gathered by a group of people, and the answers are presented in analysis section and also used in analyzing and discussing the topic. Throughout analysis and discussion, the emphasis is on recycling and the market for recycled products that are produced from waste generated from construction or demolition waste. The next part is a conclusion, which expresses the perception of the paper in few words. This chapter is followed by reflections and recommendations and in the latter, some aspects of construction waste management plan that is being implemented in Hong Kong is used.

Literature Review

The Construction waste exceeds its limit when resources used for construction process are used in excess. The waste can be minimized and then can be processed or managed according to modern technology for sustainable development. The review comprises of the issues that result in construction waste as well as its management for sustainable development.

Innovative Waste Management and Waste Categories

To have an innovative waste management system or a policy the categorization of waste is important. According to Carpenter (2001, p. iii), the construction waste can be divided into two types. They are structure and finishing waste. The structure waste is the one that is created while builder’s work stage. This waste comprises of concrete pieces, reinforcement and timber off-cuts. The broken blocks and bricks as well as filtered nails also are part of this waste. Finishing waste contains the waste materials that are generated in the finishing stage of construction. While doing finishing work, there may exist some broken tiles as well as glass pieces and smeared paints. The excessive cement mortar that is used for plastering work also comes under finishing waste. If the builder packs the gas cookers, bathtubs, washbasins and window frames, the resultant waste also comes under finishing waste.

Carpenter (2001, p. iii) further cites Skoyles and Sloyles (1987) about classification of construction waste into direct and indirect wastes. The waste materials that were damaged and are irreparable can be termed as the former. The indirect waste comprises of monetary loss. Though the material is not lost physically it may be rendered useless. Hence, the direct waste comprises of physical damage or loss of the material, and indirect waste is a monetary loss due to the former. In this regard, the author also cites Pheng and Tan (1997) as well as Garas et al (2001) about categorization of construction waste into materials, labour, equipment and time. All these wastes result in financial waste and further cause damage to the environment. After discussing about waste, Carpenter (2001, p. iii) cites Greenwood et al (2003) about a waste management plan. The waste management plan comprises information on the type of waste as well as estimated volume of waste. The waste generation tendencies and final destinations of waste will be mentioned in WMP and the next part of the plan mentions about waste minimization strategies (Carpenter, 2001, p. iii).

Necessity of Waste Management

The necessity of waste management in construction industry arises from the fact that it contributes for climate change and global warming due to enough carbon emissions that are resulted of construction industry as well as the units which manufacture the materials needed for that industry. These results have harmful impact on the environment. According to a study in UK the built environment, especially buildings use 45 percent of generated energy to power and to maintenance. This contrasts with the usage of five percent energy to construct them. Hence, the waste management of the construction industry should also consider the detrimental effects of the constructions after the completion of construction and furthermore should take care of the wastes generated while sustaining the construction for a holistic waste management policy. In this regard, it is relevant to cite the definition of ‘sustainable development’ by ‘World Commission on Environment and Development’. According to that document, the sustainable development is.

‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’(Elmualim, A et al., 2009). Hence, the waste as well as sustainable facility management should focus on strands of economic, social and environmental development. This is to triple the bottom line for sustainable development. The link between economic development and environmental degradation should be the motivation for waste and sustainable facilities management to minimize that relationship. However, even after the international agenda in 1972, there is very little work done to put environmental concerns into practice that can minimize the climate change due to construction industry.¹

The necessity of waste management of construction waste can also be estimated, when the politics of waste management are understood. The politics for waste management arises in the context of societies that have a penchant for consumption and the construction activities and the resultant constructions are equally important as the instruments of consumption. Hence, when consumption exists, there exists waste and management as well as the reduction of it is the first step for the good waste management mechanisms and systems that are necessarily introduced. ²

Environment, Construction and Sustainable Development

Land Resources

One of the important issues that needs concern when waste management is considered is about dwindling of land resources, which needs efficient waste management to use limited land resources judiciously. According to T.E.Beaumont. (2001, p.11) mentions that the construction activities as well as waste resulted from them have an environmental impact. The impact has direct and indirect implications regarding space occupied as well social and economic consequences. As the space occupied is a direct effect, the social and economic consequences are indirect implications of the construction activity and waste generated by it. The author links these effects to environmental considerations in construction, which are tangled in several issues the major ones being waste materials resulted from construction activities and also linked with land issues as the waste management also requires some land. Thus the relationship between construction, environment and land use as well as resource management within the ambit of sustainable development can provide an efficient waste management plan.

To do this the land resources in construction industry need the definition as the concept of land varies depending on interests and outlooks. To define land it is necessary to understand that the land embraces all types of physical environment like climate, geology, soil, hydrology, land forms, flora and fauna; as these have human value and may be disturbed due to poor waste management while doing and after construction activities. Hence understanding land as the one that comprises of above aspects and is essential for human survival, its management is a key aspect in WMPs of construction waste. One of the aspects that can be analyzed in the further chapters of this paper is to construct the constructions in as much less land as possible. It does not mean that the construction should be congested, but judicious use of land is recommended to minimize the resultant waste. Hence, it can be understood that the usage of land is directly proportional to waste created and the latter can be decreased with the decrease of usage of the former. In the next step, sustainable land use is recommended to minimize the creation of waste.

The sustainable land use is capable of conserving the productivity of land and effective waste management in construction industry can do it. Hence, the usage and exploitation of land should be for the benefit of the society and proposals or plans for recycling of waste materials and encouraging of usage of the materials in construction industry that are easy to recycle can be one of the aspects that can conserve land resources as these materials are extracted from land. in short, analysis of landscape or physiographic method is necessary to plan the production and easy to recycle waste materials as some of the waste materials should be in a manner to mix in the earth easily. Hence, judicious land usage in the construction industry is not only the policy that uses as much land as possible, but also the production of construction material that minimized the waste as well as recycles it if any in an affordable and economic way. That means while manufacturing the materials necessary for construction, the minimum usage of raw materials extracted from the land is necessary for an efficient waste management while construction and after it (T.E.Beaumont, 2001, p.11-13). ³

The waste generated in construction activities is such a one that has no further use. Hence, in this context, Baron J.M (2001, p.115) mentions that Men’s activities result in formation of materials who has no further use. In this context of construction, there is only one process that can make use of these materials. That is by recycling. In the absence of recycling pollution arises as the waste materials lead to contaminants and damagingly affects the environment. These waste materials, which are resulting of construction activities are left without being recycled it may result in pollution of land as well as ground water resources. Hence, to know about the hazards of waste and its management as well as minimization of negative effects, the definition of waste and pollution is necessary. Baron J.M (2001) defines waste as the one that the people want to get rid of.

Hence, when the materials in the construction activity were rendered useless, the people want them to get rid of and in this context, the management of construction as well as collection and disposal of solid and liquid wastes is necessary. However, while considering about a waste management plan, one should remember that the material, which is not useful to one person and considered as waste will be useful for another and can be reused. If not, it can be recycled and can be made into the products that are useful to other persons. In the era of globalization, there are countries that undertake recycling activities, and it is advisable to approach those countries. Nevertheless, it is difficult to move the waste materials across the borders and to avoid this. The governments should make necessary agreements with the transient countries as well as destination countries. The destination countries may use the recycled products or may send back the finished products. However, this activity is being half done and Baron J.M (2001) states that the developed countries send the waste materials to developing countries to dump them in that area.

This activity if unchecked or if the materials remain without being recycled, it cannot be termed as a good waste management plan in construction industry. In construction industry the wastes arise from demolition as well as construction activities. These waste materials contain concrete, tarmac and steel along with asbestos as well as polychlorinated biphenyls. These particles when left untreated and not recycled pollute land, water and air. Hence, it is important to reduce the damaging effect of these wastes by minimizing them. However, one cannot make zero wastes while construction and there should be an international agreement that makes builders in all countries to use certain materials who minimize waste during construction activities. There should be a universal agreement between manufacturers also to make construction materials in a ready to use manner so that they result in zero wastes while used in construction. However, as per the present usage, the concrete, tiles and glass pieces cannot be avoided and recycling processes for them should be put into action so that the people involved in construction activities can supply their waste as raw material to these recycling units. This step in waste management in construction activity is to reduce the volume of the waste that requires disposal. The wastes, which have no way other than disposal should be made in such a way that they can be blend in the soil and there should be certain places to dump these wastes.⁴

Recycling Economy

Regarding the issues of recycling in the just concluded sub chapters, one can take the cue from the efforts of Japan, which is trying to build a recycling economy that offers a best way to construction waste management processes and plans. For this effect, it is willing to promote technology transfers to other countries. However, in building an economy of recycling to encourage the efficient waste management, it is necessary to assess the impact of construction waste on management and to make laws accordingly to encourage recycling. In this context, Chiang, Anson & Raftery (2003, p.205) states that in addition to environment legislation, the governments need to create a recycling oriented society by encouraging the industry as well as people to produce and utilize the recycled products from construction waste. To do so, a basic framework is necessary to set out the principles of recycling policies that can be implemented by the legislation. The framework should consider the issues of construction waste disposal as well as collection responsibility for producers. Like Japan, other countries also should enact the revised waste disposal law that compels companies of waste disposal to ensure final waste processing as well as building construction materials.

By doing so, the government using the legislation can systemize the registration of demolition as well as construction companies and can link them to the companies that recycle the construction waste. At this juncture, the profitability in doing so comes to the fore. It can be termed profitable as construction waste accounts for about 20 percent of total industrial waste. It constitutes 40 percent of final processed waste also. As a result, this larger volume of waste materials in the form of a raw material for the recycling companies can also result in massive production of recycled products with technology that assures quality in them. One of the such technologies is Obayashi BIMA system, which is an ecological recycling system. It necessitates churning of organic waste through fermentation. The byproduct in this activity is power and solid waste will be used as compost. However, as the organic waste is limited to wood pieces in construction work, the application of this method will be minimal.

However, the system that precipitates and filters gravel will be useful in construction waste management and Eco Grab is one such type. It is used to clean the water by removing floating particles as well as suspended organic matter. If some construction waste contaminates water resources by mistake or by intention, these resources can be purified in this manner. There are technologies that can minimize the construction waste also. One such method is SMART, which means Shimizu Manufacturing system by Advanced Robotics Technology. In this method, the buildings can be constructed up to 30 stories in which welding robot can be used for an automated process for straightening a steel frame as well as other automated instruments. The involvement of Robot reduces the wastage in this process. Another system is to use precast caissons and to complete the assembly of them and forms with extreme rapidity. As the caissons are precast, there will be no casting them in the construction cite and thus that waste can be minimized. Another reason for minimization of wastage is that there is no necessity to strip or cure the concrete and this not only cuts time but also reduces waste and expedites the construction work. ⁵

Legislative Support for Waste Management

The importance of legislative support for the waste management can be understood from the fact that is mentioned by Kummer, Katharina (2003, p.6) as Wastes follow the ‘path of least resistance’. This means that the disposal of construction wastes, which are hazardous will be exported to be dumped somewhere and thus the construction waste management requires an universal law that is signed by all the countries, which are concerned about the environment that is being spoiled by dumping of construction waste. When international community unites and forms a common legislation for recycling of construction wastes, then the minimum amount of waste that is not useful to recycle can be incinerated in a safe place like a sea coast. However, the disposal, recycling as well as incineration methods should be part of a framework of legislation as well as legislation itself. However, when recycling units are established in all over the countries that sign the legislation, there may exist some sort of demand for construction waste that acts as raw material for recycling units.

Consequently, the import of construction waste from other countries should be permissible in the countries that have been recycling units for them, and they should be permitted to enter the country only if that nation has recycling units. This aspect should be part of economic and regulatory imbalance between the generating and importing states that are exploited for financial gains. Hence, it should be imperative for the nations that benefit from exporting the wastes to provide cutting edge and up to date technology that recycles the construction waste with minimized effect on environment. This aspect should result in export of wastes on a regional scale with agreements for transfer of technology, and the waste should be exported if the importing country uses superior technology in recycling them. This can be done when the wastes are treated as secondary raw materials. This imparts and economic value for the wastes and thus turns into a tradable commodity. When the construction wastes turn into tradable commodity, the recycling flourishes and the technology necessary for that also will be constantly upgraded according to the economic value of recycling business.

This depends on resource recovery, recycling, repossession, re-use as well as alternative advantages of the products and raw materials. When the system mentioned just now comes into implementation, the waste generation in the future comes to the fore and technology that is necessary for that recycling assumes importance as next generation wastes depend on the raw materials used in finished products as per the changed technology. However, even industrialized world lacks in waste management systems that are up to date. Their up gradation is not according to the demand of the waste generated. In this context, the future estimations of waste are that the least developed or developing countries may produce large amounts of construction wastes. in future and pose a danger to the environment. As the threat of waste generation increases in the near future, the necessity for legislation and international agreements on recycling also increases. In this context, Kummer (1995, p. 11) states that the a group of states that are termed as developing are rapidly industrializing and that is the major cause for the just mentioned increase of construction waste in the near future. At this juncture of industrializing of developed countries, the location of establishment of recycling units will be a problem and that also should be governed by international agreements. The propositions of establishment recycling units should be binding on signatories and thus the establishment of recycling units can be spanned across the developed and developing countries equally though the technology belongs to developed countries. ⁶

Building Materials

When we consider the construction methods and precast materials, it is important to consider building materials production and industry. As long as the production of cement and steel will be going up, the less the chance of minimizing the waste and hence, it is understandable that the recycling is the only way that can minimize the hazardous consequences of construction waste as well as the waste materials that are created from the industries of building materials. In order to consolidate and strengthen the system of recycling, the industries of building materials, construction companies and individuals should be connected to industries that recycle the construction waste. However, in this context, Sebestyén, Gyula (1998) states that the share of total production in developed countries taken by recycling differs from structural materials. The developed countries by 1998 are recycling 55 percent of steel, 45 percent of glass, 35 percent of paper and 27 percent of aluminum. Nevertheless, regarding this aspect, Germany is recycling 85 percent of aluminium waste. In this juncture of comparing the recycling the construction wastes the reason for an increase of this waste needs to be mentioned. Sebestyén, Gyula (1998, p. 46) the demand for housing, schools and other buildings increased in European countries, and this further resulted in an increase of construction activities as well as creation of construction waste.

Though some proponents say that it may increase unemployment, the industrialization of construction can be done by reducing the dependence on traditional labour intensive methods and shifting to modern ones. Some automated construction systems also are capable of minimizing the waste, which also can be termed as an environmental technology and can also use automated construction systems that use precast materials for construction, which can reduce waste and the burden of cleaning contaminated land. One crucial aspect in waste management is to clean the contaminated land, which happened so due to construction activity. The land contamination due to construction waste is due to dumping of those wastes at certain places. Doing so entails the classification of land contamination as off site, on the site and in situ. Regarding construction waste contaminating land, the first two types of ‘off site and on the site’.’. The establishment of recycling firms results in buying waste from construction industry and further results in production of fiberboard, particle board and chipboard. The presence of inorganic waste such as stone, brick, concrete and mortar results in crushing them to use it on an aggregate basis. However, the removal of iron and steel is necessary for above crushing. This is because, iron and steel can be used in the steel industry for recycling purposes. The plastic wastes like PE and PVC can be recycled by granulating them. If it is impossible, one can press them into new products and can make windows like articles. Thus in this manner the recycling makes a sense in economic point of view and adds a factor that helps in growth of economy. ⁷

Waste Generation

The construction waste will also include the demolition wastes as the materials are similar. Moreover, the construction in some areas can take place only after demolition. Thus an efficient waste management in this context results in quick demolition that encourages rapid construction activities. However, when they demolished construction are older the danger of lead paint may exist and that needs special focus on recycling those wastes that include lead paint. This type of situation may exist mainly in developing countries, where the rapid industrialization demands rapid construction as well as quick demolition of unnecessary and dilapidated structures. The waste generation from demolition depends on the types of houses and in this situation, Farfel, Orlova, Lees, Rohde, Ashley & Chisolm (2003) explain about the lead in paint of demolished structures. The demolition cases studied by them revealed that the lead in paint depends on the building material and paints used for the house. The new houses or renovated old houses found less lead content. If the walls of the demolished houses are on the street side, the lead content may be low.

This means the lead content in the construction waste depends on the wear and tear of the building or construction that faces demolition. This indicated that the demolition of older urban row houses is associated with increased lead levels and the management of that waste needs the technology that can deal efficiently with lead related waste materials. One more observation is that the lead dust fall in the atmosphere is more while demolition than while debris removal. This reveals the greater degree of disruption of lead based paints used in construction for interior as well as exterior walls. Hence, the important impurity that needs attention while waste management is lead, which is difficult to separate from the particles that are generated from demolition. However, as per the modern materials used in construction, the lead is hard to find. In summary, the significant difference between construction and demolition wastes as per today’s technology is lead. Though he lead is not part of construction waste and is part of demolition waste as the latter is imminent before the generation of former in many cases, the waste management should also include the treatment of lead particles mixed in the waste materials. Thus the debris removal and disposal of construction and demolition waste should be different as the general debris removal activities may disturb the lead concentration and this difficulty many not exist with the removal and disposal of construction debris.⁸

Solid Waste Management

While framing a legislation and framework for recycling of construction waste, it is necessary to adopt some aspects of solid waste management. The solid waste management techniques classify the solid waste as rubble and other waste accumulated on roads and on construction sites. After classification of the waste, the number of trucks that are necessary in a particular area should be estimated and the recycling companies need to arrange the vehicles to collect the construction waste as per the prior decided schedule. The recycling of waste materials should be done according to their classification and the type of product manufactured should depend on the waste material that is recycled. For example, the gravel waste should be mixed with gravel related building material and glass pieces can be used to produce new glass buildings.

However, these types of waste management techniques will have utility value only when there exists framework or arrangements to encourage builders to use those products. This is possible when the framework entails the understanding between governmental and local authority structures to place the responsibility of making the builders to use the recycled products. Even so, it is impossible, unless there is a legislation that compels the builders to do so. However, the implementation of such a type of legislation will only be possible when there is enough quality and strength in the products that are made from recycled construction waste. These results not only in controlling the construction waste but also the detrimental and hazardous effects of that. The waste that is not useful for reconstruction can be pulverized and can be used to landfills in mines. Though there is a variation in magnitude of waste generated, one can take a cue from the waste management strategies that are followed post disaster. For example, landslides and floods result in a situation of serious waste management issues, which are the responsibility of municipal and industrial waste management authorities. However, in a country that has waste management industries that are linked with municipal authorities as well as construction companies and builders, the waste can be disposed of easily and can be classified and processed.

In this context, Karunasena, Amaratunga, Haigh, and Lill (2009) explains the situation in Sri Lanka after Tsunami, and the debris generated, which is similar to the waste generated in construction activities. Though this situation is no way linked to recycling, the ways and means followed for disposal and classification and transport of waste done in that context can be used to take construction waste to the industries that recycle the construction and produce building materials from them. The experiences of that waste management can help in establishing mechanisms and systems for construction waste management in any country. However, the illegal dumping done in developing countries cannot be taken as a solution for the huge construction waste generated in developed countries. Regarding these mechanisms, the stakeholders and the relationship between them should be included in framework of construction waste management and recycling of waste. These points will be useful in waste management plan that is necessary for the builders and construction companies, which will be in line with the activities of recycling industries. This means the plan adopted by builders and construction companies should be a common plan put forth in construction waste management legislation. The plan contains the issues like identification of disposal sites and possible recycling facilities. Just the framework and legislation for construction waste management minus the coordination and communication between government agencies, builders, construction companies and recycling industries may not result in good waste management plans (Karunasena, G., Amaratunga, D., Haigh, R., & Lill, I, 2009).⁹

Planning

The construction waste management is for compact city and planning is necessary for even construction activities as part of waste management plans. The role planning in waste management can result in sustainable development. According to Michael Breheny (1996, p.13) the planning should exist from local governmental level to inter governmental level and the author cites the report in 1987 by Brundtland commission. In the pre 1945 period, the cities posed very less evil due to minimum construction activities present and there used to enough place to dump the waste. However, in the modern world the construction activities are intensified, and waste is growing while the available space is shrinking and this situation demands good planning for a radiant city in making. In this context, Michael Breheny (1996, p. 15) states that the decentrist view has the longer pedigree due to conscious practical town planning.

This can be observed in Europe and North America. The idea of planning for waste management emerged as a reaction to the dirt in the towns and cities thrown due to industrial revolution. As in that period both construction activities and the wastes from industries increased simultaneously, the necessity for planning for waste management emerged. The planning of some urban communities resulted in dent in urban centralization, which is opposite to centripetal urbanization. In this regard Michael Breheny (1996, p.16) cites Howard’s conclusion about radical hopes for a cooperative civilization. According to him, this can be fulfilled when the communities are small and are unsuitable for larger communities that exist in the modern world. The cooperation should be mixed with coordination between different fields and departments of construction industry with an ultimate goal of recycling the waste and producing the same materials from which it is generated. ¹⁰

Sustainable Regions through Waste Management

The planning for the urban areas’ construction should be in a manner that allows the development of cities and towns as sustainable regions. To do so, the dispersal and building rules and legislations are necessary to control and streamline the migration of millions of people from villages. This needs the restructure of construction as well as recycling industry that depends on it. Ray Green (1996, p.143) mentions that, when the cities are compact as they are just after second world war in 1945, there existed faraway places to dump the waste, which did not affect badly the living environment. However, after the industrial revolution, gradually the size of the cities increased and the place available to dump the waste has been decreased. The expansion of manufacturing sectors resulted in construction of industrial sites as well as the wastes from the construction and manufacturing.

This situation demands the dictates in the form of legislations about structure and local plans of the cities along with the industries that recycle the waste products. Similar to the policy that used to establish industries and townships nearby, the recycling industries should be a compulsion a little away from the townships or cities that are under construction. The recycling in another form can also be applied to the land also. As much as possible number of homes should be built in re-used urban land and this allows the policy for the supply housing land to be easier. Thus this aspect in waste management is to reduce the wastage of land due to shifting of housing areas from place to another place; for example, from villages to towns. The aspect of recycling the construction waste should at some instances act as the substitute for the compact city policy long back. The waste management plans also help the administrations to meet the demands regarding the development of land.

The recycling units, which are part of the waste management plan are also capable of generating employment, to some extent, and that also should be taken into consideration while planning for urban constructions and recycling industries. However, the important aspect of waste management is about transfer of land to urban usage. The land transferred to urban usage in the era of construction waste management should also consider the space required for recycling industries along with the space for construction of housing and allied with constructions. The intelligent aspect in the waste management plan is to consider the city as the region of concentric rings of lessening intensity as usually considered by city planners. However, the new aspect that finds a place in this consideration is the recycling industries can be located in the area of lessened intensity of concentric rings, which means that they need to be located in the outskirts of the city in the form of hamlets. When another construction starts the region of lessened intensity mentioned here also should have same status for the urban area that develops from another side of this hamlet that contains recycling industries for construction waste.¹¹

The necessity of waste management can be further emphasized by knowing about the environmental degradation in China due to growth of its economy that led to urban constructions leading to air and water pollution due to lack of waste management. Haddrill.M.V (2001, p. 153) puts the cost of waste management of China at $54 billion per annum. Hence, if the waste management of China can be made into an economy with the support of legislation the economy can further rise up to the above mentioned extent. As a result the administrations in China followed sustainable construction activities that involve waste management. In this regard, Haddrill. M. V (2001, p. 162) cites about Yunman province that provides examples about construction projects that are able to reduce some pollution due to waste materials. To do so, the provincial administration established coordination between planning, finance and construction ministries. The institutions that govern the construction activities are experienced in enforcement and have clear lines of authority with necessary cooperation.

As the province has experienced the failure in enforcement of legislation, about collecting pollution levies, the present administration is trying to do so. It also made compulsory the regulations regarding design, construction and operation of pollution control facilities for new developments. The integration of industrial development is also necessary, and it should be extended to the units that work on recycling of construction waste. In order to the reduce the pollution of water the provincial administration is running a unit funded by World Bank that established stormwater sewers in the middle of the city. They carry domestic waste along with the construction waste mixed with industrial waste. Hence, it is necessary to have separate sewerage units for different activities; domestic, construction and industrial. There should be a separate sewerage system of construction wastes that are left into water.

That means, the administration should supply water through separate channels to the construction projects and also remove the polluted water through separate channels to purify it. This leads to classification of waste management into recycling and water purifying. To do these types of activities and to have an efficient system of waste management, the priority plan is Green Engineering. This plan is based on certain key identified environmental problems due to construction waste. The first point in this plan is to control the discharges of construction projects by providing suitable sewage treatment capacity. To do these activities, the provincial government separated the EPBs from the construction commissions by differentiating the prefecture and country administrations. This resulted in planned construction of 220000 cubic metres per day of sewage treatment. This resulted in protected areas and allowed the administration to complete the South Yunman Lakes integrated master plan project. ¹²

However, the waste management activities are not enough and do not match to those of America, which have one third of World’s non polar land surface but accommodating only 14 percent of its population. Hence, Americans use river systems affected by construction for navigation, water supply and drainage as well as irrigation. In doing so, the waste generated from construction activities is minimized and it will well dispose of to destined place. Normally, USA exports the waste materials to the countries, where there are recycling units for construction waste and those products are not marketed in America. However, when it is finding that there are lesser countries that accept construction waste, various states of US are resorting to the waste management system that exists in Parana state of Brazil. This is low cost, innovative as well as community based techniques to solve environment problems that arise due to urban construction activities. The waste management activities in America also concentrate on equal sharing of resources, which demand efficient management of waste materials in every part of the country and the world. First of all, the American administrations avoid causing deforestation greater than the permitted level. Hence, the construction activities are mixed with conservation measures that ensure efficient waste management. However, as long as demand of infrastructure is on rise, the construction waste cannot be reduced and thus it is necessary to develop building materials that produce minimum waste during construction and efficient waste management technology that recycles the waste materials. ¹³

The lack of waste management also spoils the natural resources. The first such thing is the denting of water resources, which can be termed as the lifeblood of all growing matter. This is due to letting the inorganic minerals as well as fossil fuels and construction raw materials into water resources. In this regard Binnie CJA., Carpenter TG (2001, p. 292) states that organic habitat that contains vegetation, trees as well as river margins will be spoiled and with efficient management of construction waste it is necessary to devise the devices that are capable of complement or despoil the natural assets. The main pollution is due to commercial exploitation of land resources and the commercialization of construction waste management armed with technology that can recycle the waste materials into useful products is the only way out to that can save land and water resources from pollution. The first step in waste management starts from project construction. The available information can be organized by administrations to control and monitor the land use as per the civil engineering design.

This can be done by government and regional authorities, but the framework should be prepared with ample foresight. This is due to the fact that the ownership of land does not guarantee the sustainable use of it. Hence, monitoring is necessary. The civil engineering design that takes into account the available construction materials as well as geotechnical parameters and the ways and means of reclaiming the eroded land helps in conservation of land as well as construction waste management. After deciding the materials according to the activities that conserve land, the land take aspect is important for waste management as the covering the ground surface with particular structure results in a particular waste. This can even interfere with the drainage and contamination of ground if specific precautions are absent from preserving water resources and to let out used water. In this context, the recycling of used water comes to the fore but will be reviewed later in the literature review as that discussion may hamper the present review. The communications access around the land should not be severed, and the constructions should increase the mode of transportation with minimum destruction of vegetation. Moreover, for every certain number of constructions, there should exist some green area in the form of park that supports reasonable vegetation.

Even the construction of transport networks had an impact on land development and that should be checked with correct sewage facilities for waste water generated and disposal conveyance facilities that transport waste materials to the recycling facilities. When the construction is on highways, the transportation of disposal waste should be taken special care as the recycling facilities or civic administrations that take care of disposal of construction waste may be at a farther place from the project site. In that situation, the administration should provide separate regional authorities for that work. That means the disposal and transportation of construction waste from community areas and highway areas should have different arrangements and that is possible if they are done by different organizations. The administrations that take care about the disposal of construction waste should establish different organizations for urban and rural areas as well as highway areas that are far away from civic bodies. This arrangement ensures prompt delivery of construction waste into recycling units.

Moreover, the recycling units should take care that they are not polluting the water resources and their catchment areas. Hence, the inclusion of the aspect that the recycling units should not be located near the catchment areas of water resources should be part of legislation of construction waste management and framework that implements it. Moreover, the water released from recycling units should be directed to water purifying units so that that may not contaminate the irrigating channels that supply water to crops and it is necessary to prevent water pollution as well as salinization. However, the water and other wastes that are generated from dam construction also should be considered as the modern world is compelled to build them as per the irrigation and drinking water needs of the people. Consequently, this part of the review emphasizes the importance of suitable design of drains that help in construction waste management. The effective design of drains can be made possible if water purifying units are established as part of construction waste management policies. These units minimize the pollution of water due to construction activities and avoid polluted water from construction activities from mixing into the fresh water resources.¹⁴

Getting Acceptance as well as Utility Value of Recycling

Along with the policy for recycling, the administrations should keep in view about the existing policies and recycling centres that are successful. Regarding the aspect of successful and popular recycling one can take a cue from community based and economic and suitable for low-income communities in Chicago. According to Weinberg, A. S., Pellow, D. N., & Schnaiberg, A (2000, p.26) the technological changes in infrastructure of USA allowed and expanded the trade of old materials. The industrial development as well as an increase of construction activities was encouraged by better transport and communication facilities. This helped and benefited trade in rags and old metals also, which include the construction waste. The Chicago administration included construction and deconstruction waste into these recycling activities and encouraged it. Thus one can find many recycling units in Chicago that do not depend on intercity trade. The recycling communities in Chicago find the recycling units in or around their city and thus transportation expenses are minimized. Hence, the administration’s initiatives should keep in view the existing successful ventures and should add utility value to them. As Chicago’s municipal administration’s initiatives on the name of RFP in 1990 did not do that, Chicago recycling coalition opposed the process and called it as ‘bald-faced power playing by a corporation with a monopoly’. (Weinberg, A. S., Pellow, D. N., & Schnaiberg, A (2000, p.50)

This is because RFP appeared to be framed according to the needs and capacities of an international firm based in Oakbrook, which is a suburb of Chicago. These types of disputes may occur when the administrations ignore local needs and facilities while implementing recycling policies and allowing the related activities. When the recycling community in Chicago is comfortable both economically and in terms of transportation as the recycling units are not away from the city. However, the implementation of RFP proposed by the administration may result in making a single firm as a contractor for scrap and waste in Chicago, which may lead to monopoly and may make the existing units the namesake ones in the presence of a big contractor. However, the initiative can be termed as a corporate approach and the outcomes can be studied. In this regard, the review of long term strategic discussions about solid waste management will be useful as they were stirred by a number of problems within the solid waste management facilities.

The rising costs at these facilities and increasing discomfort and inconvenience to the citizens due to the presence of them resulted in the decision of the Chicago administration’s decision of introducing a corporate angle to its waste management policy. Thus the inclusion of corporate angle to the waste management may appear to monopolize the business initially, but is capable of catering to the needs of increased trade and necessity of recycling the large and huge solid wastes that are about to be generated soon. Weinberg, A. S et al., (2000, p.51) reflect these aspects in their writings, after writing the dissatisfaction of the existing waste management communities. As the outdoor sorting centres posed unsightliness to the locals as well as problems from leaking landfills resulted in proclivity of the government towards corporatization of waste management trade in Chicago. The recycling communities instead of feeling the heat of monopoly can lobby with the administration for a reasonable price for their supplies from people to the corporate company as their responsibility is limited to transportation only and sorting as well as other activities will be carried out in the premises of the company that acts as a contractor and recycling agent for the City.

The important problem in waste management is about the role of hauling firms that are not willing to budge to the policies that corporate the waste management activities. Weinberg, A. S etal., (2000) cites Lowi (1979) about the same aspect and at a juncture in the history of Chicago the waste hauling firms had a more central role and that resulted in the city incorporating 25 percent level of recycling as its goal for the waste management program. However, the community groups in Chicago regarding waste management did not serve to this purpose and the officials recognized this inability is due to limited involvement of the firms did not match the citywide recycling program. Hence, they planned for a wholesale approach for recycling and brought ‘Waste Management’ firm into the picture by awarding the contract to it. This can be considered as a different model for citywide recycling and is capable of integrating the broader goals of affordable and legally compliant forms of solid waste management. As the concerns expressed by the city recycling groups are regarding the centrality of recycling, they can be addressed by awarding them the reasonable price for their services.

In this regard Chicago city perused the waste management and recycling programs of New York City and that experience helped in reducing the budget of recycling the waste in Chicago. The construction waste management has another aspect of volatile market for recycling materials, which may result in changes in budgetary allocations for it. By keeping in view all the above aspects, Chicago’s municipal administration considered a different model for recycling that integrated within the broader goals of affordable and legally compliant forms of solid as well as construction waste management. As the differences between administration and citizen groups is regarding centrality of the activities, it has been not given enough consideration in the plan as the administration is having still higher goals and broad action plan regarding solid waste management that includes all solid waste management including construction waste. One of the most important aspects of Chicago’s recycling model is the collection of source separated recyclables, which are normally known as the waste materials at construction site or that are released from domestic activities.

Similar to the garbage bins, the administration asked the citizens to put recyclables in separate bins and is carried by special trucks that are different from garbage trucks. Thus in the first step, the administration separated garbage and solid wastes and in turn solid waste also has been asked to be separated at the generation level by the people that generate them. Different bins are provided for different recyclables and the trucks also carry them separately thus reducing the outdoor sorting at recycling units. This reduced not only space at recycling units but also minimized the sorting costs. Thus it is not only efficient but also economical in terms of budgetary allocations to the project. Even in the next stage of the implementation, the plan provides economical mode of transporting them as hydraulic crushers are provided in trucks to compress the recyclables to dump them in Material recycling and recovery facilities (MRRFs) and put them on conveyer belts.

The separation will be done and then the materials are sorted out so that the unsightliness and discomfort in the sorting process will be minimized. As these methods satisfied both economic and political concerns of recycling, the resistance from the citizen groups has been minimum and administration was able to deal with it efficiently. The model is being known as blue bag method as the non garbage recyclables such as construction and deconstruction waste along with other recyclables are accorded blue bags and other in non-blue bags. However, this efficient plan on paper has its own mismanagement aspects when the administration chose the same contractor to maintain four MRRFs that are built at a cost of $60 million. As a result, the WMX company incurred losses due to lack of expertise and experience in maintaining these units. However, this mismanagement can be corrected by having a contractor to manage these units if any administration wants to implement a waste management plan on these lines.¹⁵

Management of Different Sites

After adopting a plan similar to the Chicago Municipal administration, the remediation programs are necessary due to the presence of large construction firms. The context of remediation management of industrial sites will be helpful in managing the waste from construction sites in urban as well as in rural areas. According to Drezner, J. A., & Camm, F (1999, p.7) each industrial site is at different stage in the remediation process, and these differences will be less when the remediation is regarding construction sites as the basic waste materials created in each construction or deconstruction site are common and the differences exist in the materials used in finishing works after the completion of construction. Hence, the remediation of the construction sites can be differentiated into two at the macro level; the first being the construction wastes created while building a construction and the second instance will be about the waste materials generated when the builder does the painting and other decorative works for the houses and installing necessary machinery for industries. The remediation should be defined for construction sites as it will be different from those of industrial sites. In industrial sites, the basic steps for cleanup are site identification and characterization.

In the next step risk assessment, remedy selection, remedial action and long term monitoring is necessary. Regarding construction activities the long term monitoring aspect is not necessary and remaining steps can be followed to remediate the sites. The remediation aspect is because the builder may not have technical expertise regarding the recycling or management of waste materials and thus the administration should take the responsibility of construction waste management as well as recycling. The administrations should form a system in the lines of Comprehensive Environmental Responsive, Compensation and Liability Information System (CERCLIS) to identify the potentially responsible party for the pollution and the damage caused to the environment due to construction. Hence, a monitoring by the body that is supposed to be set up in the lines of CERCLIS is necessary from the day the builder starts construction or demolition. The monitoring will asses and dispose the waste and a cess can be levied for that purposes. The cess includes the charges for disposal and assessing the waste. However, the administration should frame a system that does not charge for recycling as the units can earn a profit by selling their end products.

The income accrued by the administration by the recycling units can be used to pay back for the builders if they pay the cess in time thus generating system that circulates money and creates income sources for administration. The existence of this type of cess prevents the builder to use excess of a raw material thus also avoiding the generation of excess waste and should be a part of the waste management methods and policies framed by administrations. Hence, each administration or government should set up an agency in the lines of environment protection agency (EPA) that monitors the local governments’ initiatives regarding construction waste management and recycling of waste materials. The agency can also contribute to the technology that enhances the recycling process and thus can encourage the builders in future to use the end products that are produced from the construction waste. The remediation process, which will be the second stage in the waste management activities of the administration should look after the assessment of exposure pathways for health and environmental effects of the construction waste at different sites and to decide the waste generated according to the project cost. It can also decide and suggest the raw materials that can be used and can offer concessions in cess for disposal and sorting out if the builder complies with the suggestions.

After taking these precautions and setting up a system for remediation of construction and deconstruction sites, it is imminent to make it commercially viable and the suitable management practices are necessary for it. The remediation program should be considered when the construction sites are not complying to ordinary methods of waste management that are suggested before remediation. The system should use the innovative program management initiatives for construction waste management. This needs extension to cost and liability estimation to make the processes commercially viable so that the private investors come forward to invest in the sector of construction waste and remediation of sites. The resource allocation is significant at this juncture and one of the resources is the sites that generate the construction waste. The next resource is to provide land away from the residential areas and reasonably nearer to the cities to establish recycling facilities. Moreover, as mentioned just now, the process is regarding remediation, the agencies should take care that the building materials as well as methods minimize the waste generation and thus the coordination is necessary between remediation agencies and the units that manufacture or supply the construction material. The management of the remediation programs can be divided into two; the issues of government agencies and private operators.

The role of government agencies is limited to focusing on simple metrics that provide guidelines and monitoring. The private sector in this regard can focus on reform of superfund also along with good management practices. In this regard it is necessary to take into account the Drezner, J. A., & Camm, F (1999, p.14)’s writings about the commercial firms’ investment in analyses that indicate the bench mark and improve the remediation processes. Though the authors mentions for the industrial processes, the same can be used for implementation in construction waste management. While government agencies address the issues of cost and scheduling of the projects, the operators should define project and should have control and accountability for the remediation projects. The government should take care that there should not exist multiple contractors to deal with individual projects. Though there may exist different type of waste materials, the single contractor for a single project site helps in good communication between builder and the contractor and that results in smooth disposal of the waste materials from the construction site.

The single contractor for a small individual project also helps in coordination between builder and contractor so that adequate connection between the waste generation budgets for such projects as the construction works may go on for days to months according to the magnitude of the work. Hence, to have a good construction waste management program it is necessary for administrations to frame a legislation that compels any builder to take permission from construction waste management or remediation agencies after taking permission from civic bodies that are responsible for the constructions in the area. However, in this situation it will be compelling to the builder to have strong and positive relationship with regulators and can also develop coordination so that the regulator knows the practical problems of the builders and can suggest remedies accordingly. After getting this type of support from the administrations, the operator identify the liabilities and plan cost effective way to dispose the waste material depending on the magnitude of work that happens at the construction site. ¹⁶

Sustainable Facilities Management

All the waste management methods, policies and legislations need to be targeted at two aspects. One being the achievement of sustainable environment and the other will be the sustainable facilities’ management. According to Elmualim, A., Czwakiel, A., Valle, R., Ludlow, G., & Shah, S (2009) the construction industry is one of the important industries in all countries. In this regard, the author cites Office for national statistics (2008) about the employment of 1.9 million people in this industry in UK. As the annual output is around 83.5 billion GBP, the sustainable facilities’ management is necessary for the flourishing of industry. Hence a sustainable design is necessary for the construction industry in which waste management policies and methods with legislations are being implemented. In designing such policy, the climate change has been considered to be the most pressing public policy issue. In this regard Elmualim, A et al (2009) cite Hawken et al, (2000) that mentioned the climate change as an important aspect in sustainable facility management. If the design is sustainable, the future generation of the destruction waste can be minimized, and the construction waste can be delayed as the construction will last longer and the necessity of the new constructions will be delayed. Hence, the design management can be considered as the holy grail of sustainable policies according to Mc Donough and Braungart (2002) who are cited by Elmualim, A et al., (2009).

Though there exist cultural differences for sustainable design, the physical aspect of building dominates the design and construction. Hence, the facilities’ management should be involved in design and construction processes to meet the sustainability goals. Hence, the combination of waste management policies with the sustainable facilities’ management can be an effective tool to avoid global warming and climate change by reducing the carbon emissions. To do this, it is important to create an industry that provides professionals of facility management so that they can work with the experts of construction waste management experts. As per 2009 estimates cited by Elmualim, A et al., (2009) the FM market in UK estimated to be worth 106.3 billion GBP and has been forecasted annual growth of 2-3 percent. Hence, this is a good industry that can work in tandem with construction waste management industry. To do so a concept is necessary for facility management so that one can integrate the processes within an organization in order to maintain and develop the agreed services. The agreed services in facility management are regarding the improvement the effectiveness of its primary or core activities, which decreases the waste from the facilities.

As a result it is important to maintain good relationships between various institutions that undertake waste management and facilities management so that they can develop interaction between them while constructing a building and can coordinate while maintaining a construction. As it is important to use buildings and services as well as assets to create an environment that can improve the performance, the coordination between waste management and facilities management industry can find similarities and can learn from each other or work together for better performance. In the course of working the sustainable facilities management has to work parallel with construction waste management as well as sustainable development organizations. One common aspect that exists in all the three aspects; construction waste management, facilities management and sustainable development activities is about minimizing climate change. Both the managers of facilities management and waste management should stand forefront of organization and should be in a position to influence the behaviour of individuals working in business, government departments and public services. Both waste management and facilities management activities work for reducing the emissions and thus have a common goal of reducing the climate change.

Thus both types of activities try to reduce the detrimental effects of construction and facilities maintenance and thus work on the basis of supply chain, minimizing the waste and disposing the waste to recycling to reduce the energy demand for construction and maintenance. Hence, the construction waste management policy should work in tandem with facilities management to address the existing building stock in achieving sustainability as per Wood (2005) cited by Elmualim, A et al., (2009). The policy that combines the construction waste management with sustainable facilities management results in interaction between recycling and facilities management skilled professions and the results can be helpful to each other as both of them strive for environmental conservation by waste and facilities management. One can wonder how both of them can be combined.

The facilities management needs sewage and network for flow of liquid and solid waste. The network that is used for the disposal of waste construction waste management can be used by facilities management and the sewage facilities that allow the flow of liquid waste from the facilities to purifying centres or dumping areas can be used by the construction waste management to let out the any liquid waste that is generated while construction and deconstruction. The combination of construction waste and facilities management is capable of presenting an opportunity to make a measurable difference regarding taking the sustainable agenda forward as stated by Elmualim, A et al., (2009) citing Rapoport (1970) and Stringer (1996). As the facilities management gives best practice guidance to its customers or the people living or using the facilities, the knowledge gained from it may be useful for the construction industry in minimizing the waste in the process of construction. ¹⁷

Controlling the Waste

After the review, one can understand that the need of the hour is control of waste, though there is no control on the constructions. That means, instead of decreasing the number of constructions, which may be detrimental to the needs of the growing population, it is important to minimize or decrease the waste generated in the construction process. According to Chase, S (1925, p.3), it should be done on war foot. The author states the effects of the control will be in the savings in human energy resulting from constructions. Regarding control of waste, it will be useful to mention the waste generated in war and framing controlling strategies on that big waste can be useful in controlling the wastes generated in reasonable amounts for long periods. To manage and control that waste a psychological unity to face a common danger is capable of reorganizing the construction industry in principle when the administrations streamline that process with necessary legislations and frameworks. To do so it is necessary to know the channels of waste generation. Regarding the aspect of understanding and identifying the channels of waste Chase, S (1925, p.27) states about the two parts of the theory of waste. The first part is an analysis of requirements.

This analysis zeroes on the sources and enquires about the economic targets of the industry. In the second stage, the waste management should understand about the technical arts of production, and waste generated and framing of new practices that may minimize waste without disturbing the economic targets of the users. The current practices should be listed and must be graded so that one can understand which practice is best for minimization of waste. In order to enhance the waste management activities over time, there should be a system from the side of administration, to replace the current practices which can be considered as failures. For example, the indiscriminate destruction of natural resources to produce construction materials is not recommended and the supervisions of governments should start from mining the raw materials and must extend to the point of finished products used in construction activities. This point is the first one regarding waste generation and the second point is the construction site.

Hence, the construction waste management should look for waste in two places. One being the units that produce building materials and the second place is the construction site. Hence, the construction waste management policy should plan disposal of waste from these two types of sites and plan recycling units also to meet these necessities as well. The author mentions about the controlling of wanton destruction in his identification of sources of waste, and this can be applied for construction industry as well. However, this can be implemented when the administration establishes a system to record the waste generated that compares with the necessity of the materials. This information can help in making practices that can minimize waste while producing building materials and doing the same during construction activities as well.

Consequently the theory of waste in construction industry favors recording the sources that furnish harmful or unnecessary waste while in production or in construction. Implementing the resultant practices that emerge from research and if they are made mandatory in production and construction activities may create engineering and moral problems. While framing and implementing best practices and putting them in the place of current practices human wants need consideration as the requirements constitute the target, which is the aim of the production. Hence, while implementing the policies regarding construction waste management, the theorists should keep in view that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. That means, in waste in one industry may be the raw material of another industry and this can be used judiciously while implementing the relevant legislations.

However, the housing industry generates lumber, iron, cement as waste materials and this increase when the comforts and luxuries offered in the constructions increase. So there is an opportunity for the administrations to discourage the luxurious constructions in housing industry by levying heavy taxes on them thus minimizing their construction. According to Chase, S. (1925, p.30) sound theory of waste management demands that the materials be supplied free from adulteration and in a capacity to minimize the waste. Hence wastes in consumption should be taken into consideration and in this context, the consumption is of two types; first being production of building materials and the second one the construction activities. As a result, Chase, S. (1925) cites J.A.Hobson about the goods of which majority part is consumed and in the construction industry majority part is used up in the building of a facility or a building. The maximum usage from any product results in minimization of waste and this will be true in the case of construction industry also. This situation demands the monitoring activities from the side of governments to monitor the industries about the manufacturing of finished goods that results in minimum and recyclable waste after consumption.

After efficient examination, the industrial section of administrations should issue priority orders to the production and construction methods as per the order of waste generation. The products that generate minimum waste should be given priority and the ones that generate more waste can be put in less priority category. To do so, it is necessary to examine the techniques of production and construction. Normally the techniques of production materials and construction activities depend on the current status of utility value of the constructions. As per the policies of waste management theories, the production f building materials should follow the technique that generates lesser waste and releases lesser emissions. In this regard Chase, S (1925, p.33) cites Frederick W. Taylor and mentions that the technique of production cannot be conducted at lower levels than the present state of human knowledge warrants.

Hence, the usage of information to invent new methods of construction and deconstruction waste management is necessary to ensure that the methods followed are not at lower level as per the available knowledge. At this juncture the question arises about the availability of theory, knowledge and technology that ensures the products that generate minimum waste. As the frequent changes in technology may result in escalating the cost of scrapping the old machines and building new ones, this may result in generation of new waste. Hence, the machinery should be provided with enough options to include higher generation technology when it comes to the fore. Regarding the waste generated at units that produce construction materials, the administrations should estimate technical waste to minimize it. Without reasonable changes in environment policy, administrations cannot assess the extent of technical waste. As the production units of construction industry and builders of facilities increase production it should be taken care that the administrations should monitory the way of minimized waste.¹⁸

Concept Developed from Literature Review

The analysis and discussion chapter will be according to the concept developed in literature review. The review started with the necessity of construction waste management and explaining the detrimental effects on environment due to construction industry. After establishing the necessity of construction waste management, the role of legislations in implementing waste management policies will find a place in review. This establishes the necessity of a legislation for construction waste management uniformly over a large area or internationally. As a result, the domestic laws of some countries and international laws in general are reviewed, and an example has been cited. The concept developed until now is the necessity of construction waste management in the era of rigorous construction activity and the necessity of support of legislation to implement it. After this, the different waste management methods and the planning that is necessary to implement were reviewed and this review draws out attention to sustainability of environment by conserving different resources necessary for sustainability of construction activity. At this point, the review goes deeper and suggests the importance of recycling of the waste generated to limit the use of natural resources as well as minimizing in minimizing the climate change. After this aspect, the review gradually discusses other topics and brings forth the aspect of combination of facility management with construction waste management to minimize and streamline the waste management activities.

Hence, the concept developed in literature review is that the Waste management is a necessity in an era that demands more constructions and the role of legislations in implementing it. The different aspects that streamline the waste management activities are combined with the recycling and facilities management process and are necessary for sustainable environment which can provide enough space and opportunity for constructions in the future. The analysis and discussion will be in the direction mentioned here.

Methodology

The methodology involved in this paper is to review and analyze authentic sources on construction waste management and to have a survey about opinions of different builders and environmentalists about waste management plans. The analysis and survey also include the aspects related to sustainability of the industry while focusing on cost effective methods as well. In addition to that the adoption of methods that makes use of as much less energy as possible to complete a construction, which in turn minimizes the wastage as well finds a place in the paper. The method of analysis used is a qualitative analysis and as part of the analysis, the investigation about why and how of decision making in waste management will be done with the available case studies. The conclusions made are hypotheses and can be termed as informative guesses and are facts. While doing analysis the objective is successful waste management. While attaining that objective the subjective judgment on non quantifiable information like expertise in construction, industry cycle as well as labour relations are explored. The methodology is followed by analysis/discussion section that comprises a survey questionnaire and conclusion follows. After that the researcher explains the experiences while doing research in the first person and that section constitutes reflections. At the end of the dissertation, the recommendations for good waste management will be presented with the scope and necessity of further research on this topic.

Apart from the discussion and analysis as per the available sources, a questionnaire will be part of the methodology, which will be used to get opinions of different builders, owners of buildings and facilities as well as the agencies that implement waste management activities.

Questionnaire

1. The Construction Waste management is a necessity
   1. Yes
   2. No
2. What is the goal of construction waste management policy
   1. Sustainability
   2. Economy
3. Do you feel that a network is necessary for disposal of construction waste from the site of construction?
   1. Yes
   2. No
4. Do you find recycling of construction waste is useful?
   1. Yes
   2. No
5. If ‘yes’ Why?
6. If ‘no’ why?
7. If you prefer recycling units to recycle the construction waste in your city, do you want the set up of recycling units that are solely limited to your city? That means do you prefer set up of separate recycling units for different geographical locations?
   1. Yes
   2. No
8. If ‘yes’ What is the geographical location that you prefer to have recycling units specially for it.
   1. City
   2. Province
9. Who should be immediately responsible for implementation of construction waste management policies and enforcement of legislation regarding it?
   1. Municipal administrations
   2. Provincial Administrations
10. If you prefer municipal administration; Why?
11. If you prefer provincial administration’ provide Reason
12. If you want both municipal and provincial administrations to take care of implementation of legislations of construction waste management, who should take care of disposal of waste?
13. What should be the role of provincial administration in implementing legislations and policies of construction waste management?
14. In the same context as the above question, what is the role of municipal administration?

Analysis/Discussion

Understanding the need of Waste Management Plans

To understand the importance of waste management methods, the implications of waste in construction projects that negatively affects the stake holders play an important role. To minimize the negative effects on stakeholders, the innovative approaches that minimize the waste and the processes that recycle those materials are also necessary. Oladiran, O. J. (2009) finds that 50 percent of people who undertake construction projects have always used waste management plan, and 36.7 percent did now and then. However, there is 13,3 percent of people who never used it indicating the necessity of educating them about WMPs and their uses and benefits. In this regard, the author cites Olomolaiye (1991) and Akanni (2007) Olomaloaiye (1991) about actual waste being higher than the estimator’s allowance while planning waste management. This is an indication for non compliance of methods of WMP while constructing a project.

As per the information in Oladiran O.J (2009) indicated that educating the people about waste management plans is a necessity. 50 people are questioned as per the questions in the questionnaire provided in methodology section. Out of them 25 people are builders and 20 candidates are leading community projects that manage waste management plans in urban areas. Five people are the ones who own houses and constructed them without the help of a builder by hiring the construction workers and taking plan from engineers.

For the first question 18 builders and all the 20 community leaders and five individuals responded ‘yes.

Regarding the second question about goal of construction waste management policy, 23 builders, 20 community leaders and three individuals responded to that sustainability is the goal of WMP.

All the 50 members responded ‘yes’ for the third question about the necessity of network for disposal of construction waste from the construction site.

For the fourth question of usefulness of recycling of construction waste, 18 builders, 20 community members and four individuals responded ‘yes’

The reason expressed by the people who responded yes, is that the material produced from recycled raw material is cheap, and it also results in sustainability of environment.

The people who said ‘no’ did not find any relevant reason for their response. However, builders who said no are in a mood of not using the building materials produced from recycling of construction waste.

Almost all the respondents told that they wanted the recycling units to be set up in their city as it will be easy to dispose and transport the waste material to those units thus minimizing the transportation charges. All the people favoured separate recycling units for different geographical locations.

The geographical location that all the people preferred is the one that is away from residential locations.

Without a single person deviating from the aspect, the answer regarding the question of the organization immediately responsible for construction waste management policies implementation is municipal administrations.

The reason for the people preferring the municipal administrations is that they are accessible to the people more easily than the provincial administrations and have networks for other solid waste management plans.

As there are no persons preferring the provincial administration as the immediate one for implementation of construction waste management policy, there is not answering for it.

In case, if the provincial administration is also having a share in implementation, the majority of people favoured the municipal administration to take care of disposal of construction waste.

45 persons opined that the assessment of the extent of necessity of facilities and network for construction waste management should be done by provincial administrations as they have enough resources for those activities.

The role of municipal administrations is to dispose and take the waste to recycling units, which are monitored by provincial administrations and owned or managed by private operators.

According to the responses for questionnaire the research of Oladiran, O. J (2009) states that there is no correlation between use of a WMP and its effects on materials, time, labor and equipment waste minimization. As the WMP has to affect of these issues, the professional builders will not favour the waste management plans and such legislations. Normally, the builders calculate the implementation of plans with the time, labour and equipment waste they can save and minimize. As the WMPs are not related to saving time or labour, nor they can minimize the equipment usage, the tax benefits that can be offered to builders who comply with waste management plans can be useful to bring them into the ambit of legislation. Along with the sop of tax benefit, it is also necessary to impose penalties on builders who do not comply with the WMPs. Thus a carrot and stick policy is necessary for the implementation of legislation that favours construction waste management for sustainability of environment as well as the land resources.

The administrations can bring the construction companies into the ambit of legislation by making them easy the waste minimization by increasing the rate of usage of WMPs. When the waste generated in the construction process is minimized, that will be one of the factors that prompts the builders to comply and cooperate with waste management plans. However, the mode of implementation also matters as it decides the maximization of benefits. The issues in any WMP that minimized the waste are 1. Management’s commitment, 2. Putting someone in command for complying with WMP, 3. Identifying the sources and estimating the amount of waste, 4. Picking up the options for complying with waste management legislations, 5. Planning the actions accordingly, 6. Training the staff according to the implementation of WMP, 7. Implementing the plan and 8.

Taking the stock of the situation in a timely manner. When these aspect results in conserving the resources of the builder as well as saving the costs, it will be easy for the administration to bring them into the ambit of legislation or prompting them to comply with the legislation voluntarily by recognizing the necessity of sustaining the environment that is linked with cost effectiveness of the building activities. When this will be useful to enter foreign markets the builders make it a point to follow waste management plans. This situation also increases the environmental awareness of the builders and thus minimizes the waste of natural resources used in the construction of a building or a facility. In this context, Oladiran, O. J (2009) cites Greenwood et al (2003) who states that WMP should be considered early, that is at a pretender stage to see the maximum benefits of the plan. The maximum benefits of the plan can be seen when the plan has been optimally utilized by the builders. The optimal utilization depends on disposal and transportation of waste generated and the usage of recycled materials for construction purposes as well. Regarding this aspect, the efficiency of WMP that minimizes the waste should also concentrate on materials, labour and time minimization.¹⁹

Recycling the Waste

While selecting a WMP that minimizes the waste and that enables to concentrate on materials, the recycling comes to the fore as that is important factor that can minimize the waste as the facilities of recycling will change the perceptions of waste. In the presence of recycling units, most part of the waste can be viewed as raw material for them and when builders can get some money in return for supplying them, normally the waste is minimized in the sense that the yesterday’s waste is a raw material today. In this regard Zimring, C. A (2005, p.2) states that the material reuse has been increased in modern days and recycling helps in decreasing climate change and thus helps in conserving the environment. By recycling the construction waste the serious environmental consequences can be minimised. When the administrations want to conduct the recycling on a large scale for example all over the country, the example of United States may be taken into consideration. In US millions of Americans resort to recycling programs and place waste materials in pickup vehicles or recycling centres.

However, if the waste is related to construction activities, there is a need of separate network as the regular network of collection of waste will generally have no place to collect the construction waste and the recycling units of ordinary and construction wastes will be different. Hence, the vehicles that collect the waste from the site to recycling centres should have a network that links the recycling units to construction sites and that one should be maintained by government by charging a nominal fee from recycling centres as the network provides raw material for them. The construction and demolition wastes will be first transferred to scrap yards and from there to the sites of industrial reuse. The important factor of success of recycling is that the recycled products should have some quality that is acceptable so that the products have enough customers. In the context of recycling of construction waste, the recycled products need to have enough quality, so that they can be used in construction processes as building materials from which their raw materials are generated in the form of waste. In order to have successful and sustainable waste management plans, it is important to have the perception in people that the recycling is a standard practice of reusing materials.

To encourage this, Zimring, C. A (2005, p.3) mentions about the trucks come along to pick up the bins in which Americans put the recyclable waste. In the same manner there should be trucks that come to construction sites to collect recyclable construction waste materials, which are put in bins designed particularly for the construction waste. In this regard, Zimring, C. A (2005) cites the example of Revere’s fashioning of old metal into new objects. As it has become popular due to the quality of new objects made from old metal, the similar quality in the building material made from construction waste also encourages construction waste management plans in any area by any country. However, there exists a difficult aspect in changing history of building material reuse, which is the attitude of the people that changes with mass consumption that can affect the reuse of the materials by recycling. Hence, it is important to have environmental regulations so that the scrap industry may flourish with minimum effect on environment and the policies encouraging people to use the building materials produced from construction waste in the process of new constructions.

This should have legal support and in this context it is significant to mention the resource conservation and recovery act that allows manufacturers not to be legally accountable for the potentially hazardous wastes of their products. The implementation of this type of law in construction waste is possible if the waste generated from the production of building materials and the waste generated from the construction and demolition process have separate industrial network that produce new materials for construction purposes. This can be made possible when there is a system that handles the scrap or waste generated in construction processes and makes it reusable products. This system contains scrap processors and the construction or demolition waste will go near these processors, who can process these waste materials as raw materials for recycling units and this aspect is capable of increasing the quality of recycled products. This type of legal framework compels the companies that produce building materials to assess the effects of their activities on land, air and water as well as on their workers. To minimize those effects the scrap processers should be allowed to establish units near these industries to minimize the effect of the activities on environment as the scrap processers process the waste materials and turn them into raw materials for recycling.

Hence the scrap processors should be accessible to builders, recycling units and industries that produce building materials as well. In this type of system the scrap processers are affected by regulations and in turn the industries and recycling units produce and design their production activities according to the activities of scrap processors. This aspect should be part of legal framework such legislations so that the scrap processors, industries and recycling units work in tandem with each other and have coordination in their activities. That means the industries and recycling units do not have to comply with the regulations directly, but designing their production activities according to the activities of scrap processers brings them into the ambit of regulation that governs the scrap and waste recycling. For example, in some urban areas the scrap processors may want to process the construction waste that is useful to produce the materials necessary for the beautification of the urban areas that are nearer to the recycling units. The recycling units should comply with that aspect and should produce those materials. However, there should be an option for recycling units or industries to produce certain amount of their production according to their marketing needs.²⁰

Pollution Prevention through Waste Management

As per the above discussion, it is clear that the construction industry should be nimble and agile due to the processes that are inherent and turbulent. The turbulence of production is due to the fact that the construction industry also plays a role in polluting the environment as it uses the products produced by combustion. This situation demands the technological choices that can be modified to make the outcome favourable to environment and waste management is one such aspect that encourages the desirable technological choice. In this regard, A.R. (1993, p.1) cites United Nations’ conference on Trade and development organized in 1978, which states that

“Man’s impact on the physical environment is the outcome, not simply of the sheer size of his economic activity but also of the form that this activity takes-that is, the nature of the technology employed.” (A.R, 1993, p.1)

Hence, technology employed in construction activities as well as in waste management and recycling is capable of minimizing the undesirable effect on environment due to construction activities as well as the recycling units. One such technology that is useful to discuss in the context of the topic involved in this paper is technology that reduces the manufacturing by products or waste. That means the examination of ways and means of development and transfer of pollution prevention technology is crucial for waste management in any industry including construction. As a result the external as well as internal factors at a construction site are crucial in determining the influence of enterprise-level environmental practice according to the waste management methods that are being implemented by administrations. This context brings about the relationship between technology and the environment, which is important for the analysis of construction waste management, which can contribute to economic and social sustenance. Regarding this, A.R. (1993, p.2) cites the efforts of agencies of United Nations as well as the governments that foster discussions to protect environment for an appropriate technology that minimizes the waste.

In order to encourage the builders to cooperate with the construction waste management methods of the administrations, the governments have to provide the building materials that are made by the technology, which minimize the waste generated while they are used in construction. To support this aspect, A.R. (1993, p.3) opines that the multinational corporations can act as the agents that are responsible for transferring the technology and hence the governments can work with them to develop the technologies of waste reduction and recycling and offering them to builders in order to make them comply with the waste management methods and policies that are being implemented. Coming to waste management, the important aspect is pollution prevention and examining it is also a challenge as one has to weave together work from different disciplines and sites. This means that the development of pollution prevention technology in the likeness of technology that recycles the construction waste needs multidisciplinary approach in order to capture the knowledge regarding it effectively. One such aspect is to examine the production processes in recycling units.

However, when such a technology was found, it may not be viable for production as it may not be cost effective. When it renders to be not cost effective, the products coming out of usage of that technology may not find customers and that may result in failure of recycling units, which in turn results in rejection of construction waste management methods. Hence, when a technology is good in reducing the pollution but not cost effective instead of establishing recycling units for every urban area the governments can plan a large unit at one place so that the establishment and production costs can be minimized due to large scale production. However, this is not only the solution for adaption of every technology in the course of implementation of recycling as part of construction waste management and it is necessary for a company to look at economic questions in an ecological way and vice versa. In doing so, the unviable costs incurred due to implementation of a particular technology can be levied as a cess that can be used for the construction waste management purposes. Despite the availability of option of the levying of cess, it is suggestible to look for different approaches for waste management. In this regard, A.R. (1993, p.18) mentions about EPA’s that are widely used and defines that the waste minimization can be achieved with source reduction and recycling.

The reduction is an on-site process and the recycling is an off-site one. Focussing on the recycling, it is important to look at the suggestible pollution prevention activities of recycling units that are crucial parts of construction waste management. These activities include volumes of production, product type, business planning time frame as well as R&D. Hence, the recycling units should be part of multinational corporations to face environmental challenges in recycling construction waste as they can invest on R&D that reduces the waste as well as pollution. As the ultimate goal of construction waste management is to reduce pollution and to achieve sustainable environment for construction activities, development of corporate policy that links the construction waste management with environment, health and safety is necessary. Some of the measures that are necessary for pollution prevention programs are focus on waste streams, solid, liquid and gaseous wastes and energy efficiency. There should be a separate department in municipal administrations and also at the level of governments to monitor and to guide the recycling units and offer reasonable technologies for them to ensure a sustainable construction waste management program. This implies that the agencies mentioned just now should work in tandem with the MNCs R&D units to offer compatible technologies that ensure reduction of waste while recycling the construction waste.²¹

Waste Reduction as one aspect for Pollution Prevention

Apart from compatible technologies, it is important to reduce waste from construction activities to reduce pollution, which is the sole target of all waste management plans. According to observation of Plueddemann D W (1994), the increase of generation of waste results in an increase of disposal costs. this further decides the pricing mechanism of the recycled products. One such practice that reduces the waste is to stop the production of inappropriate materials and in this context it can be suggested as such building materials that produce more waste. For example, the wooden material used in the construction process can be modified and moulded as readymade items that can be fitted into the spaces necessary in construction such as windows and doors. These types of activities can reduce the waste generated at construction sites. Though there would be a large amount of waste generated in the site of manufacturing the above-mentioned wooden readymade items, the administrations can set up recycling units near to those industries so that disposal costs as well as a number of recycling units regarding construction waste can be reduced.

This one is an good example of an affordable waste management plan in the construction sector as it decreases the waste generated at construction sites as well as the necessity of disposal network. The more waste reduction methods arise from the aspects such as product reuse, recycling of the waste, energy recovery and land filling. These four aspects have to be given priority in the same order mentioned above. The reuse has been given more priority because, it is better than recycling and thus reduces processing that pollutes the environment even though for a smaller extent. The examples for materials which can be reused are the ones that arise from gravel, bricks and cement. The next priority recycling can be used for the materials which are broken or rendered useless during a construction process. The examples of such materials are the electrical appliances, readymade wooden material and package substances used for cement and other materials.

These items need segregation after the disposal, and the recycling units have to do that. The next priority of energy recovery is making ensuring the durability of materials used in construction so that the waste generated from demolition can be delayed. Even after the demolition the building materials used in the construction of that demolished building should be useful as raw materials for recycling units that manufacture building materials for warehouses, which need materials not as durable as the ones necessary for the houses and industries. The next priority is land filling, and this can be used in the activities of the above three priorities as they comprise of waste generated or the non-recyclable waste, which can be used for land filling. Apart from these activities, the product restrictions or bans on the materials which create more waste while construction is necessary. The materials which create comparatively more waste while construction need to be identified for the restrictions or bans mentioned above. For the remaining materials it is necessary to maintain product standards so that the wastes generated through them minimize the environment pollution and are recyclable. The aspect of waste being recycled should one of the product standards that determine the quality of the material. Another significant aspect is reuse that can reduce waste.

In this regard, Plueddemann D. W (1994) cites Michigan’s goal for reuse as four to six percent of solid waste stream. Similarly one can plan reuse of four to six percent of waste generated in the construction process for reuse. The extension of reuse is recycling, which can achieve the goal of conservation of environment. For this activity, the builders should be encouraged to segregate the waste generated at the construction site. To do so the administrations should encourage them to do so. This is possible, when they have monetary benefits or tax. As the aspect of recycling deserves more attention than source reduction or reuse, it is necessary to administrations to frame laws that encourage builders to segregate waste generated before they give it to the disposing network. By doing so, the disposal network can be relieved of sorting out the waste before it supply to the recycling units. The legislations that encourage the builders to segregate waste can be of two types. Making it mandatory to the disposal network to pay for the waste that is received as raw material or the government can reduce taxes to builders and can compensate it by collecting the same from the recycling units as they are relieved of the activity of sorting out the raw material received as this aspect reduces the space required for the unit and savings on salary paid for the workers allocated for the sorting work.

In the course of encouraging such activities, 31 states in US have adopted one or more recycling strategies and the important one that needs mention here is multifaceted approach by Michigan. The strategies have different policies starting with procurement policies. The section that contains procurement policies is most important of any comprehensive recycling strategy as it can increase the buying power of and can create wonderful market for recycled products. In this regard, Michigan’s policy of having 10 percent price preference for recycled materials is best example for a procurement policy as a minimum amount of recycled materials will be procured by governments. This creates a demand for the products and in turn they have their own market to sell. In addition to this aspect of price preference, it is necessary to frame a policy that mandates a minimum percent of recycled materials in all materials used by a builder to get permission for any construction from the government if the recycled products are available in the type of materials used by them. The percentage of mandatory amount of recycled products in every construction site should increase every year and have to reach a fixed amount in a suitable timeframe. These policy implementations are not possible without tax incentives.

The focus of the tax incentives should be on the purchase of recycled materials so that the resultant low cost can encourage its use. In all these guidelines mentioned till now, there lies an aspect that is ignored. It is the responsibility of recycling units to recycle the raw material they got from the builders for a price lesser than the raw materials got by the manufacturers of the first hand building material. In this regard, one can take a cue from Florida’s charges on manufacturers of recycled products who fail to recycle at least 50 percent of the waste that can be gathered by the disposal network. However, the disposal restrictions are also necessary to restrain them from harassing the recycling units. The disposal restrictions should be regarding the compulsion of collection of waste from the builders and supplying them to recycling units. If the recycling units have sufficient raw material (waste) the administrations should put restrictions on disposal networks so that they deposit the waste collected in a specified area allotted to them by the administrations. However, the disposal restrictions should be framed in a manner to furnish the required raw material for recycling units and simultaneously depositing the waste collected in the specific sites so that the harassment of disposal networks towards the recycling units can be avoided.²² In the later stage of implementation the sustainability of construction activities takes the front stage.

Construction Waste Management as Key to Renewal

The compatible technologies that reduce the construction waste also play major role in considering the waste as key to the renewal and according to Smith, W. G (1999) it is necessary to meet the human needs. The renewal of waste is possible only with waste management as it can minimize the damage to the environment due to construction activities. The goals of waste management should be reduction of energy used as well as the material content in production of building materials and the waste generated during construction. The follow up of this aspect is the usage of wastes generated at the production sites of building materials as well as construction sites. In this regard, the author cites Canada’s economy that is characterized by the reliance on energy as well as natural sources that are being conserved by the resource recovery through waste management. As the resource recovery through construction waste management is poor, the reason for this was the under prices of its resources. Hence, the increase in price of resources also helps in resorting to efficient waste management methods through recycling by builders.

To do so, the traditional industrial production and marketing model has to be followed as the last stage in construction waste management models. This stage comes after the recycling of the waste materials, which generates new products. If the builders should use these products then these should be very much less in cost than the products that are manufactured first hand from the available natural resources. This is the fundamental aspect to make the utility aspect in construction waste management a success and one should understand that the unlimited usage of resources can also generate unlimited waste. Thus the construction waste management models should have a common feature at the end point in the form of recycling units and marketing of the products produced by them. These aspects change the construction waste management into an industry that depends on cheap abundant resources, which are nothing but waste generated in construction activities. The availability of these resources depends on the waste disposal methods followed by municipal administrations. They have to implement two types of methods do dispose waste; one for the garbage generated from households and the other to collect construction waste from construction sites. If not, the disposal vehicles should have provision to transport both types of wastes in a separate manner and the construction waste can be transported to recycling units at a later stage. However, the governments have to force the construction industry to respond to the growing public concern of pollution by accepting the construction waste management methods.

The acceptance could be in the form of complying with the waste disposal methods by letting the vehicles take the waste generated on daily basis. This makes the way to the concept of industrial ecology, which is an aspect that is being brought forth by minimization of pollution by recycling. The recycling is correct answer for negative effects on environment due to industrialization and consumerism. In this regard, Smith, W. G (1999) states the basic premise of industrial ecology as the one that helps in achieving sustainability by redesigning the industrial production that is suited to the activities of natural eco systems. Recycling is the inherent activity of natural eco systems and by adopting such an activity as part of construction waste management plans and policies, the self improvement of construction industry can be achieved. To do so, the recycling units that are important constituents of construction waste management plans should have integrated set of cyclical processes that optimise the consumption of energy and materials. That means, the recycling units of construction waste should generate minimum or zero waste to produce building materials. This can be made possible by emphasizing on product design that is capable of easing the manufacture and disposal processes.²³

As per the analysis and discussion in this chapter, clearly the construction waste management needs coordination between different departments and agencies. The first waste generates from the industries that produce building materials, and it is better to have a system to recycle those wastes. In the next stage, the waste would be generated at construction sites, and municipal administrations should implement waste management plans for these wastes. As per the review and analysis, both large and small sized recycling units of construction wastes are necessary. The former can be used by the builders in the area in which people do not want to have recycling units in the surroundings of their city or town. The small or medium sized recycling units will be useful for the areas in which the communities for recycling purpose exist and want to recycle the construction waste generated in their area within the surroundings as they want to use the products again in the constructions that happen in the same area. The network between these organizations and sites is also important to dispose the waste materials to recycling units.

Justification of the Topic

The justification of construction waste management lies in resource management and sustainability. The resource management and sustainability are interrelated as the latter is regarding both construction industry and environment. The sustainability of environment allows the availability of resources and that in turn helps in sustainability of industry. Hence, the policies, methods, legislations, strategies for their implementation and technologies used for construction waste management depend on sustainability of environment and waste management helps in that way. In that manner, the topic of the essay can be justified, and it is necessary to review the literature and analyse the findings to discuss the most suitable options and thus helps in emphasizing the implementation of construction waste management policies by governments. As per the view that support justification and just mentioned above, the explanation of resource management can help in understanding the need of waste management. According to Howitt, R (2001, p.105) the resource management is not just a small processes.

It has to consider the scientific technocentric paradigm that enables an industry and people to understand the complex realities in a simple way. To do so, the slot in the industry or economy that undergoes resource management should fragment, subdivide the activities and should decide the objectives of the policies in a manner that results in sustainability of the construction activities. If the resource management do not have an idea of whole production processes, the waste management cannot be achieved as it involves the production of some items that are to be sold n the market. Hence, the waste management includes the marketing objectives also thus compelling to turn waste management into a sort of resource management to attain sustainability of environment. The justification of the analysis and discussion lies in the perception that accepts the changes in the industry as well as technology.

Hence, it should be multidirectional as discussed in the paper and independent as well. As a result, the old systems that are clear in the activities to be done are not sufficient and a new systems that can be operated globally with internationally binding legislations as well as modern technologies that minimize the change in environment are necessary. The topic selected can be justified in that sense as it reviewed and discussed the administration, implementation, making legislations, proliferation of technology as well as networking problems in waste management in construction industry. The literature till now is unable to stop the central debates and concerns of contemporary social theory in general relating to construction industry. This is due to absence of linkage between replenishment of resources and their usage. As the discussion and analysis tries to establish that link and recommends further research in that direction, the topic and the way it presented can be completely justified (Howitt, R, 2001, p. 105-107). ²⁴

Conclusion

The review done in this paper starts with the necessity of the construction waste management and legislations for its implementation. After reviewing the literature that enhances or enriches the waste management process, the aspect of recycling has been found as an important aspect that results in an efficient construction waste management plan. The review of necessity of construction waste management, the need of legislations to implement it, the importance of recycling, the significance of builders’ attitude in using the recycled products relies on the sustainability of environment. The sustenance of construction industry and its enhancement also depends on the negative effects on environment and to minimize them, the construction waste management policies that are coupled with recycling process and units are necessary. The significance of recycling units increase with the increase of market for their products and the amount they pay for procuring waste materials from the construction sites.

As these waste materials act as raw material for these units, the managements of recycling units should have a network that connects different communities to the recycling units and this network should be monitored by municipal administrations of respective areas. In addition to that the administrations should provide logistics support to the network mentioned here and this makes easy to dispose the construction waste from the sites and to take it to recycling units. The network should also have the units that compress the construction waste before taking them to recycling units. The compression units should contain sorting centres to sort out and compress the waste if necessary and possible so that the raw material occupies less space in recycling units. After reaching the recycling units, the construction waste would be used as raw material and the building materials can be produced from the waste. This makes the minimization of natural resources possible and achieves the sustainability of the environment.

Reflections

While writing this assignment, I found the necessity of construction waste management as the aspect that not only sustains the construction industry but also that can conserve environment. The literatures available regarding the management of waste materials that are generated from construction industry are regarding the legislations and their implementations. Though all the literature available has recycling as one of the aspect that is part of construction waste management, very few sources emphasized its importance. However, the significance of recycling has been more emphasized in other types of solid waste management. For example, there is enough literature about the recycling of wastes in garbage that is generated from homes in cities. The literature about that aspect has been successfully used in this paper to have the same type of network and disposal units for construction waste management plans also.

Taking a cue from the activity of recycling of domestic waste, it has been applied and the advantages are narrated as well as analyzed in the paper. In the course of reviewing the literature and analysing the concept and literature available as well as the answers for the questionnaire I found that recycling is important and significant factor that can encourage waste management plans in construction industry as the builders can benefit from the wastes by supplying them to recycling units and in turn getting the building material for cheaper prices than the ones produced first hand. The important aspect I found it difficult to analyze and review is the network and transportation facilities that are necessary for the disposal of construction waste to recycling units.

The next aspect that is complicated is about location of recycling units. As I did not find enough literature about that aspect, I am unable to give recommendation though I find some responses from the persons I questioned after writing literature review. As these responses are based on the facility and convenience of few builders, these suggestions cannot be put under the recommendations chapter due to the absence of enough research done on this issue as it poses the question about using the municipal network that collects garbage from the homes. Though I reviewed this proposal, in analysis part I did not find it viable as the nature of waste generated is different and the construction waste needs no compression activities that are necessary for the domestic garbage. Hence, the construction waste should be transported without compressing unlike the domestic waste and this feature in the construction waste management needs separate network for disposal of construction waste and to deliver to recycling units.

Limitations of Research

The limitations of research are about the recycling of construction waste. Due to non availability of enough researches and literature, the paper is unable to emphasize the need of it as much as it deserves.

Necessity for further Research

Further research regarding construction waste management can be done on recycling aspect as well as making builders to use the building materials produced from recycling of construction waste.

Recommendations

The recommendations for construction waste management methods and policies could be as follows as per the review and analysis in this paper.

1. The construction waste management policies should keep in view the sustainability of environment.
2. Though the sustainability of industry is important, it should be linked with that of environment.
3. The waste management plan that contradicts sustainability of environment and encourages the sustainability of industry should not be encouraged in the related framework or the legislation.
4. The waste management plan should consider the natural resource conservation as well as environmental quality.
5. After accepting the waste management plan the system that resembles to the one being followed in Hong Kong can be adapted to collect the waste.
6. The system has refuse collection system between the construction site and the recycling unit. That means the vehicles that carry the construction waste from sites dump them in the refuse collection centre.
7. The refuse collection centre separates the waste into depending on their nature through the process of exhaustion. This will remove the unnecessary dust from the waste. In the next step the refuse is separated and in the final step it will be loaded into the trucks that transport them to recycling units.
8. The important aspect in this plan is that the demolition contractors have a responsibility of sorting and processing the materials that arise from demolition. In this regard Peter Cookson Smith (2000, p.151) states that the contractors have to process “all materials arising from demolition works at sources.” They have to remove timber, steel, rubbish and other decomposable materials and only the remaining dust will be used as land fill.
9. The Hong Kong system has made the control of asbestos as a concern in the demolition of buildings and every waste management plan should consider this.
10. Thus the asbestos management policy can be part of waste management policies of any administrations.
11. The asbestos management as well as processing of asbestos waste also should be the responsibility of the demolition contractor.
12. After this, the network that works between construction sites, refuse collection centres and recycling units should be established and should be managed by the local municipal administration.
13. At the end, the products that come out from the recycling unit should have market and this will be possible if the administrations make the recycled products a compulsory content of building materials for the constructions in any area.

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Zimring, C. A. (2005). Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Footnotes

1. Elmualim, A., Czwakiel, A., Valle, R., Ludlow, G., & Shah, S. (2009). The Practice of Sustainable Facilities Management: Design Sentiments and the Knowledge Chasm. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 5(1/2), 91+.
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17. Elmualim, A., Czwakiel, A., Valle, R., Ludlow, G., & Shah, S. (2009). The Practice of Sustainable Facilities Management: Design Sentiments and the Knowledge Chasm. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 5(1/2), 91+.
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