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Rapid growth in construction activities as a result of a growing population and urbanization in many parts of the world generates a large amount of waste from construction. To reduce and manage these wastes, a comprehensive understanding of the construction waste generation factors is needed. The purpose of this study is to identify the contributin...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... have been collecting the amount of waste from construction projects in order to gain insight into the status of the problems and find ways to manage them. The proportion of construction debris (by weight) that is landfilled in each country shows between 13% and 60% compared with the total amount of waste (Table 1). The reduction of waste from construction will have numerous benefits, including natural resource conservation and reducing the use of virgin materials to produce construction materials, cost reductions from reducing the amount of construction materials, and reducing expenses from waste disposal [14]. ...Similar publications
Citations
... Other authors attribute construction waste to the project lifecycle, such as [18][19][20][21], while some others categorise it based on the factors' origins. For instance, Luangcharoenrat et al. [22] identified 28 waste factors that they subdivided into four groups considering level of significance, labelled as design and documentation, human-related aspects, construction planning and methods, and materials and procurement. Additional categories proposed in previous research include handling procedures, site conditions, and other external factors [6]. ...
... The European Parliament and Council [35] define CW as "waste generated by construction and demolition activities", whereas in [4][5][6], waste was defined as discarded or excess material produced throughout construction works. Other studies such as [6,36,37] further define CW as unwanted materials or products generated throughout the construction lifecycle, including asphalt, concrete, steel, and wood, amongst others [22,26,38]. Although the above definitions could have different interpretations, they coincide in construction waste being the result of the excessive use of resources with no added value to the project. ...
... Weather [6,20,22,24,33,42] The limited scope of prior studies, which often focus on small-scale projects or specific project types, highlights the clear gap in the literature. To help mitigate knowledge gaps, the present study examines three larger and distinct construction projects, as discussed in the following sections. ...
The construction industry continues to generate vast volumes of waste, which harm the environment and negatively impact socio-economic sustainability, especially in a developing country like Saudi Arabia. Prior to investigating effective approaches for managing waste, we must identify the main drivers of construction waste. This paper develops metrics and criteria for identifying and ranking the waste cause factors (WCFs) in the construction of mega-projects in Saudi Arabia. The methodology adopted includes a thorough literature review and a survey ranking waste factors based on a five-point Likert-scale. Data collected from 239 participants across three distinct construction mega-projects were analysed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with its corresponding post hoc tests, and the identified waste factors were ranked according to their relative importance index (RII). The findings of this study indicate that the main sources of waste in Saudi Arabia involve design changes and complexity, poor project coordination, inefficient waste management systems, lack of supervision, drawing errors, low skill levels among workers and designers, and procurement mistakes. The results and discussions derived from the investigation aim to deepen the understanding of the causes of waste in large-scale construction, which could inform researchers, policymakers, and professionals, whose joint contributions should enable effective waste management strategies in large construction projects.
... This remains a gap, as the lack of prioritization of attributes makes it challenging to develop focused strategies that maximise CW reduction, as contractors may inefficiently allocate resources to less impactful attributes, leading to inefficient CWM practices. Weighing attributes of effective CWM is a complex, multifaceted challenge that requires a systematic approach (Luangcharoenrat et al., 2019;Shurrab et al., 2019). Since the attributes vary in complexity, an MCDA is needed to quantify their relative importance (Mustajoki et al., 2017;Pamučar et al., 2021). ...
The rapid increase in building construction projects due to urban development has led to a significant global rise in construction waste (CW), adversely affecting environmental, social, and economic aspects. This study aims to assist building contractors in minimising CW by evaluating the importance of 27 key attributes to assess their performance in construction waste management (CWM). Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) was employed to determine the weight of these attributes using the Best Worst Method (BWM) based on interviews with 10 experts. The most influential attribute for effective CWM is the ‘Establishment of a strict CWM policy within the company’, followed by the ‘Implementation of separated waste bins according to waste types and on-site sorting’ and ‘Developing a comprehensive waste management plan during the early stages of construction’. This study enables contractors to understand the impact of each attribute on enhancing CWM performance and minimising CW in building construction for sustainable development.
... The high waste production in this industry can cause significant negative environmental and aesthetic impacts on the cities and prevent the road to sustainable cities and societies (Kim, 2021). This industry consumes 35% of the energy in the world and emits 40% of CO2 to the atmosphere (Luangcharoenrat et al., 2019;Tafesse et al., 2022). This rate of waste production is also filling up the lands in the cities and creating hazardous areas in both developed countries (Tolaymat et al., 2023) and developing countries (Soto-Paz et al., 2023). ...
... Construction waste is influenced by various factors, including building size, material quantity, construction methods, workforce size and expertise, building height, underground work, and advanced technologies like BIM and Digital Twin (Desai et al., 2023;Luangcharoenrat et al., 2019;Naji et al., 2022). However, not all factors contribute equally, and their precise impact on waste generation and prediction accuracy remains unclear. ...
The construction industry is responsible for a significant section of waste production among all industries, which not only emphasizes the importance of waste management in this industry but reveals the inefficiency of the current methods in this area. Having the right estimation of waste and its associated factors is the first step to developing a waste management plan, which has remained a challenge. This research aims to develop a systematic machine learning-based platform to predict the waste in different sections of buildings for main materials including concrete, steel, bricks and blocks, tiles and stones, and wood. Using a variety of machine learning methods including Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Support Vector Regression (SVR), Decision Tree Regression (DTR), and Random Forest Regression (RFR), this study determined the optimal prediction platform for each material type and building section. This research also utilizes the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) value to identify the most important indicators in construction waste production. The results of this research demonstrated that waste production can be predicted with above 98% accuracy for most of the sections and indicated the project duration as the most important factor impacting the project waste and the Building Information Modeling (BIM) as the least influential factor.
... Among them, it is generally acknowledged that early choices made during the planning and design phases are crucial in minimizing construction since a multitude of design options can be critically examined with regard to material choice, structural type, size, complexity, type of joint and connection, and construction method -all of which have a significant impact on waste generation (Estrada et al., 2023;Islam et al., 2019;Luangcharoenrat et al., 2019). Plasterboard walls, for example, can reduce CDW generation per m2 of the constructed surface by around 15.94-3.04% in terms of weight and volume, when compared to buildings that use conventional brick partitions (Villoria S� aez et al., 2014). ...
... DfA refers to a design approach that enables buildings, structures or products to be easily modified, expanded or repurposed over time to meet changing needs or conditions (Kasarda et al., 2007). Reversible connections are recommended in the DfD strategy because they can make the replacement of particular components during the end-oflife phase easier (Allam and Nik-Bakht, 2023;Lynch, 2022). The DfA strategy aims to increase the lifespan of buildings by designing them with adaptability in mind (Anastasiades et al., 2021). ...
... One typical solution is selective demolition. According to certain research comparing selected demolition to conventional demolition, there are more opportunities for material recycling , and fewer adverse environmental effects in the selective demolition scenario (Andersen Figure 9. Summary of other circular methods for CDW in different stages ECAM et al., 2022). On the other hand, a case study carried out in Italy shows that selective demolition raises certain trade-offs between sustainability and circulation and is not an effective way of achieving net energy and environmental savings (Pantini and Rigamonti, 2020). ...
Purpose
The building industry generates around ten billion tons of construction and demolition waste (CDW) annually worldwide, posing both financial burdens on contractors and significant environmental hazards. Embracing a circular economy (CE) approach emerges as a promising strategy for sustainably managing the vast volumes of CDW. However, the sustainable performance of many attempts in CDW circulation is still questioned and need to be justified. This study transcends traditional reviews by adopting a systematic literature review, focusing on the central question: “What’s the contribution of the 3R principle in CDW circulation and its sustainability performance?”
Design/methodology/approach
The methodological framework encompasses literature searching, screening and quality assessment, culminating in the selection of 177 articles for bibliometric and integrative analysis. Comparative assessments were conducted on major CDW reduction strategies, reuse materials, recycling rates and other circular strategies. The sustainable performance of the process was also discussed as well as the modern advanced tools used for the design and assessment, such as building information model (BIM), AI and geographic information systems (GIS).
Findings
The bibliometric analysis reveals the evolution of the selected publications by year, country and research hotspots. Through the integrative analysis, the research explored the 3R principles adopted in CDW circulation, including waste reduction, reuse and recycling, as well as other circular methods across key global economies. There is a notable disparity in the volume of articles addressing reuse compared to recycling. In comparison to the environmental and economic performance of CDW circulations, social performance has received less attention. Moreover, the study ventured into prospective research trajectories, exploring future themes such as the adoption of a “zero-waste” strategy for the industry, the promotion of higher-level material circularity, the need for institutional network building among stakeholders in CDW circulation practice, and new tools for holistic sustainability analysis.
Originality/value
Few reviews in this field have focused on the sustainability performance of the CDW circulation. This comprehensive analysis not only contributes valuable insights into the current state of CDW within the CE paradigm but also directs attention toward critical and sustainable avenues for future research in this area.
... In the process of urbanization, the construction industry is developing rapidly, but the problem of construction waste is becoming increasingly serious. The demolition of old buildings and the construction of new buildings generate a large amount of construction waste with a wide range of types and complex compositions [1,2]. Traditional aggregates, etc.) as road subgrade filling materials. ...
... After 24 h, take out the test, wipe the aggregate until no shiny water marks can be seen on the surface, which is the saturated surface dry state, and weigh its saturated surface dry mass (m 1 ), then put it in an oven at a temperature of 105 • C to dry, and weigh its dry mass (m 2 ) after cooling. Calculate the water absorption of coarse and fine aggregates according to the Formula (1). ...
It is difficult to meet environmental requirements via the coarse treatment methods of landfilling and open-air storage of construction waste. At the same time, the consumption of building materials in highway engineering is enormous. Using construction waste as a filling material for proposed roads has become a research hotspot in recent years. This paper starts with basic performance tests of recycled construction waste materials, and then moves on to laboratory experiments conducted to obtain the road performance of the recycled materials, the testing of key indicators of post-construction filling quality of the roadbed, and analyses of the deformation pattern of roadbed filled with construction waste. Additionally, the ABAQUS finite element software was used to establish a numerical model for roadbed deformation and analyze the roadbed deformation under different compaction levels and vehicle load conditions. The experimental results show that the recycled material has a moisture content of 8.5%, water absorption of 11.73%, and an apparent density of 2.61 g/cm³, while the liquid limit of fine aggregates is 20% and the plasticity index is 5.4. Although the physical properties are slightly inferior to natural aggregates, its bearing ratio (25–55%) and low expansion characteristics meet the requirements for high-grade highway roadbed filling materials. The roadbed layer with a loose compaction of 250 mm, after eight passes of rolling, showed a settlement difference of less than 5 mm, with the loose compaction coefficient stabilizing between 1.15 and 1.20. Finite element simulations indicated that the total settlement of the roadbed stabilizes at 20–30 mm, and increasing the compaction level to 96% can reduce the settlement by 2–4%. Vehicle overload causes a positive correlation between the vertical displacement and shear stress in the base layer, suggesting the need to strengthen vehicle load control. The findings provide theoretical and technical support for the large-scale application of recycled construction waste materials in roadbed engineering.
... Leading to these issues, many researchers and scientists have investigated the use of recycled plastics in several sectors, such as construction, automotive, electrical, and packaging. However, construction has emerged as an important industry in recycling plastic consumption through the use of natural fiber-reinforced plastic composite, which is extensively used in decking, door framing, floor lamination, and wall insulation [10]. This is owing to the fact that recycled plastic alone is brittle, hence the addition of natural fibers as reinforcement helps to enhance composite behavior for mechanical strength. ...
Natural fiber-reinforced polymer composites (NFRPCs) have been widely used in many applications due to their sustainable nature and potential to replace traditional synthetic polymer composites. This study aims to produce NFRPCs using recycled polypropylene (rPP) and recycled high-density polyethylene (rHDPE) and natural oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB). Different matrix compositions were used to produce NFRPCs (rPP, rHDPE, and the blend of rPP/rHDPE (25:75, 50:50, 75:25)) with OPEFB as reinforcement using the compression method. Thermal stability and melt flow index analysis were used to observe the performance of the recycled plastic and the blends. Three-point bending and horizontal burning tests were employed to evaluate the composite samplesʼ flexural properties and fire-resistant behavior, respectively. The results indicated that recycled rPP/rHDPE blends show higher MFI if compared to pure rPP and rHDPE. The thermal stability and degradation temperature of the rHDPE matrix are higher compared to those of rPP and rPP/rHDPE blends due to rHDPE having long-linear branching with stronger intermolecular forces. NFRPCs composite with rPP matrix shows the highest flexural strength with 48.43 MPa; however, the rPP composites exhibit the highest burning rate of 19.81 mm/min. The composite fracture surface revealed predominant delamination between fiber layers and matrix.
... The successful recycling or reuse of CDW is complex and involves recycling technology, government policies, economic markets, and even waste treatment fees [2][3][4][5]. Luangcharoenrat et al. [6] compiled data from various countries and reported that CDW accounts for 19-60% of landfill space. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [7], the U.S. has sharply increased waste since 1996. ...
Sustainable construction and demolition waste (CDW) management have been widely discussed. For a city seeking urban renewal or transformation, aging houses are remodeled, which creates a large amount of CDW. Taiwan is located in an earthquake-prone area with many aging houses. Sustainable CDW management is extremely urgent for such cities or countries. This study presented the current CDW state in Taiwan and suggested possible management strategies. Material flow analysis was conducted to understand the use and distribution of the construction materials. This shows that 100% of the raw material of concrete is imported, whereas 100% of the raw material of brick is domestic. Half of recycled steel is used as a raw material in steel products. The predicted CDW from aging houses was calculated and could be a sustainable source for these materials. However, waste concrete and brick are currently mostly used as subgrade filling materials but are not recycled to produce new construction materials. There are three obvious challenges in CDW management: the lack of cost-effective recycling technology, the increasing quantity of CDW, and the limits of refilled land and landfill volume. However, three opportunities have also emerged: the high potential for reducing carbon emissions from CDW, improved recycling technology, and increasing awareness of the circular economy. This study concludes that reducing the amount of CDW, increasing the lifespan of buildings, increasing the use of reuse or recycled CDW, and proper management of final waste disposal help reduce waste and build a nearly zero-carbon-emission construction industry.
... In the era of global climate change, a new issue has emerged. Namely, CDW, unlike other types of waste, has a large volume and is mostly non-degradable [24]. This can synergise with urbanisation's unfavourable consequence of covering large soil areas with impermeable materials [25]. ...
With progressive urbanisation, construction waste management (CWM) has emerged as a prominent environmental challenge, with extensive documentation of its environmental, societal, and economic consequences. Recent studies highlight the human factor as crucial to the efficiency of CWM strategies. However, integrating this factor into CWM research presents methodological challenges due to the diverse personality factors involved, complicating the comparison and generalisation of results. This research views CWM behaviour as a product of social influences shaping beliefs and values, alongside systemic freedoms or restrictions in an individual’s environment. Focusing on the Serbian student population, the study identifies key drivers of CWM behaviour among future psychologists, hydraulic and environmental engineers, and construction engineers. Three critical factors emerged: CWM Organization, CWM Social Support, and Social Network CWM Implementation. Civil engineering students experienced the most favourable organisational conditions for CWM, reinforced by strong social networks and role models. Both civil engineering and hydraulic and environmental engineering students were part of supportive social networks, reflecting a professional culture that strongly endorses CWM efforts. This study underscores the importance of social and organisational contexts in shaping effective CWM practices among future professionals.
... Land clearing from the construction activity generates debris waste. Throughout construction, other solid wastes will also be generated such as concrete, stone, sand, metal, etc [25]. ...
... Additionally, wastewater is generated from construction activities such as site cleaning, site sewage, water spraying to remove construction dust, etc. Ecological issues have been a significant part of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). One of the primary goals of an EIA is to protect nature's capacity and productivity, particularly the ecosystem, to maintain its sustainability [25]. However, this system has many uncertainties, considering many complex technical activities conducted at construction sites. ...
... The main impacts were towards the ecosystem impact which is soil, water, and air pollution. This result has proven the research from [4,25] that construction activities result in many negative impacts on the environment. One of the reasons is because of the improper waste management and the attitude of the construction personnel itself. ...
The construction industry is the biggest contributor to every country’s economy and development. It also uses many natural resources and produces much solid waste. It is important to apply environmental sustainability in the construction industry as construction activities contribute to environmental damage. This study investigates the impacts of construction activities in urban areas on environmental sustainability. The study adopts quantitative data collection via a questionnaire survey of the registered total population of 1,670 G7 Contractors in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre. A sample size of 313 was obtained and a total of 42 responded. The practice of sustainable construction sites in urban areas is still low. The construction sites in urban areas cause four main environmental impact. The highest is the ecosystem ecological impact followed by, public impact, and energy and natural resources impact. Additionally, the challenges of construction sites in urban areas to achieve environmental sustainability were higher initial costs, technical challenges, insufficient training, and lack of awareness and knowledge. The first potential solution was implementing green building assessment tools specifically using MyCREST followed by specific government roles, development of skills and education, and digitalization and Networking for construction site pollution management.
... Specifically, policy support is directed towards the governments, financial subsidies can be applied to both governments and the construction projects themselves, while modern construction methods, intelligent technology assistance, and on-site CW utilization are more focused on project-level implementation. Furthermore, the factors leading to CW generation and discharge are similar across the globe (Gálvez-Martos et al., 2018;Luangcharoenrat et al. 2019;Bajjou and Chafi, 2022;Wang et al. 2022). Therefore, despite the differences in national backgrounds, these strategies can be applicable to other countries as well, provided that certain adjustments are made according to local circumstances (Wu et al., 2024a(Wu et al., , 2024b. ...
In recent years, the substantial increase in construction waste (CW) has prompted academia to conduct in-depth research on CW management. Understanding generation characteristics, disposal paths, and corresponding economic benefits of CW is a prerequisite for effectively managing CW. Therefore, this study develops a method that includes a Construction Waste (CW) classification system and an economic benefits analysis model to investigate the characteristics of CW generation and analyze the economic benefits of disposal paths, respectively. Based on a case study of a public building construction project in Shenzhen, China, the results reveal that soil dregs (290.75 kg/m2), slurry (59.93 kg/m2), and concrete (15.53 kg/m2) are the major CW compositions generated. Various paths can be established regarding on-site and off-site comprehensive utilization and landfilling to dispose of CW, with on-site benefits about 9 times that of off-site comprehensive utilization. Therefore, on-site comprehensive utilization of CW is the most beneficial from the perspective of a ‘zero-waste construction site’. Based on the results, five CW reduction management strategies are developed: policy support, financial subsidies, modern construction methods, intelligent technology assistance, and on-site CW utilization. This study is not only valuable in obtaining nuanced quantitative CW data at the project level methodologically, but also in advancement of effectively managing CW from its generation to final disposal practically.
