INTRODUCTION

Construction wastes have become a pressing issue in many developing countries. It

causes an adverse effect especially on environment, economy and social aspects.

As know, for development of any country, construction industry plays a key role in
socio-economic. Nowadays, due to the rapid increase in standard of living such as needs of
infrastructure projects, changes in consumption hats and the increase in population,
construction industry has begun to expand in a way that contribute as well to the waste
generation that has become a noticeable issue in all nation.

According to Kibert (2003), he explained that there are seven principles in sustainable
construction. These seven principles are:
1. Reducing
2. Reusing
3. Recycling
4. Protecting nature in all activities
5. Eliminating toxic substances from construction
6. Applying life cycle economics in decision making
7. Creating quality built environment.

Construction waste can be categorised into two groups that is physical and non-physical
waste. A physical waste is usually labelled as losses because it mostly generated as a material
loss. In addition, it is one of a huge contributor to the landfill. Figure 1.1 below showing a
classification of a construction waste. This shows that waste can be generated in various forms

Figure 1.0: Classification of a construction waste

 According to the figure above, physical waste is mostly material waste while for non-
physical waste, it consists of time overrun and cost overrun. Bossink et al., made a research
that almost 26% of landfill are occupied by construction waste.

For non-physical waste, these issues are far more critical especially when there a stop
work of a particular construction work and thus abandoning the project. All of these findings
are showing negative impacts towards the environment, social and also towards the economy
of a country. Plus, it may lead to a reduction in the construction productivity. By these
sustainable issues, there is a need to move forward and start applying sustainable
construction waste management in order to avoid the negative impacts.
SUSTAINABLE ISSUES RELATED TO CONSTRUCTION WASTE

Construction waste is a global issues that give negative impact towards the overall
performance of project as well to the environment, economy and social aspects. A further
discussion regarding on sustainable issues that arise due to construction waste will be
discussed.

ENVIRONMENT

Obviously, construction waste if it is not manage properly will affect the environment.
For example, uncontrolled construction waste and other wastes as well, may increase the
usage of landfill sites. A study made by Yeo and Hwang (2011), shows that more than 50% of
the landfill in Singapore were from the construction industry. In addition to that, the
construction waste occupied almost 26% of the landfill (Bossink and Brouwers, 1996). The
increase of the landfill may cause soil and water pollution if it is not treated properly. Example
of the environment issues that may arise from the uncontrolled construction waste are:

1. Air pollution and atmospheric effects

Construction waste usually generate high amount of dust that may cause air pollution.
Besides that, construction waste may contain hazardous material such as paints that
contain mercury-based biocides and asbestos insulation. All these hazardous material are
dangerous towards the environment if it is not dispose properly. Besides that, incinerations
of construction waste may lead to air pollution.

Other than that, the increase of construction waste will indirectly increase the burden
of landfills. As known, landfills may contain toxic gases such as methane gas which is
natural produced in the organic matter decay. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has recorded that methane may able to trap solar radiation 20 times effective than carbon
dioxide (CO2). These will increase the global temperatures and the green house effects.

2. Water pollution

Construction waste may cause water pollution which is one of the negative impact to
the environment. Water pollution from construction waste may come from diesel and oil,
paint, solvents, cleaners and other harmful chemical. Besides that, water pollution may
come from the contamination of water mixed with debris and dirt. The surface water run-
off carries all these pollutants from site, such as diesel and oil, toxic chemicals and building
material like cement.
 These substances, then will get into the waterways and may be poisonous to the water
life and to the animals that drink from it. In addition, pollutants from the construction sites
can soak into the groundwater that is far more difficult to treat than surface water.

ECONOMY

In term of economy, construction waste has a negative economic impact by

contributing additional cost to construction due to the need to replace the wasted materials.
This is due to the costs of rework, delays and disposal that cause financial losses to the
contractor.

Besides that, cost overrun issues is becoming widespread in Malaysia and led to
abandonment in many projects. For example, Ministry of Housing and Local Government has
reported that 35 projects involving 12,000 unit of houses in Malaysia have been abandoned
due to the poor financial management.

Other than that, construction waste may affect the economy due to the reduction in
environmental resources and energy usage, international reputation and effect on the tourism.

SOCIAL

Construction waste cause social impacts such as health and safety of workers and
societal image of the construction industry. For health, it may increase the risk of severe health
implication due to the contamination and pollution resulted from the increase of construction
waste.

For example, the contamination of air may cause lung and heart disease respectively.
Yu et al. (2013), stated that in Hong Kong, the disposal of construction waste has become a
social problem due to shortages of landfill spaces.
CASE STUDY 1: Sustainable Construction Waste Management in Australia: A Motivation
Perspective

This study was made to study on the idea of sustainable construction waste from the
whole building cycle perspective instead of construction and demolition stage alone, reviews
regarding the construction companies, contractors, government sectors and material
manufacturer’s sustainability issues in Australia’s construction industry, social and
environment perspective and lastly to know the motivation of these companies for sustainable
construction waste management.

Australian government has initiated solutions in order to reduce waste. For example,
Australian Capital Territory’s government supports construction demolition waste on-site
reuse (ACT Government 2012).

In South Australia, the government has produced the Draft South Australia’s Waste
Strategy 2010 – 2015 in order to ensure the goal of zero waste. This Draft offer guidelines for
waste avoidance, recycling and waste in order to maximize the value of resources and to
reduce and avoid waste generation.

Zero Waste International Alliance has stated that zero waste is a product and process
design and management by which it avoid and eliminate waste materials to conserve and
recover all the resources. The concept of zero waste includes variety of concept that has been
developer for sustainable waste management systems such as avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle,
recover, treat and dispose.

Figure 2.0: Action to achieve zero waste

 However, there are challenges that may cause difficulty in realising zero waste.
Example of the challenges are:
1. Producer and consumer may think that the cost of dumping to landfill is cheaper
than reuse and recycling (short term thinking)
2. Inconsistency of legislation across the states causing loophole to waste
generators to dump waste from one city to another. For example, landfill is
charge in city A but not in city B, so the waste generators may transport all the
waste to city B.
3. Cheapest contractor’s tender successfully bid for construction projects. The
cheap price may related to lack of willingness to pay for the waste management
strategies as this may incur extra costs.
Table below shows the strategies used in order to achieve the goal of reduce, reuse,
recycle, waste avoidance, treat and dispose in a sustainable manner. (Lehmann et al., 2013)

Table 1.0: Strategies used to achieve the goal of reduce, reuse, recycle, avoid waste
production, treat and dispose the waste in a sustainable manner

In this studies, it is stated that we should view the issue from the whole building life
perspective such as:-

1. Wrong inception that lead to unnecessary demolition during construction stage.

2. Poor design that lack of future foresight that lead to premature demolition or
renovation in occupancy stage.
3. A poor and weak construction waste management. For example, communication
breakdown between workers may lead to excessive offcuts during construction
phase.
 4. Poor building usage that bring an early end to building.
5. Poor demolition plan and work that lead to insufficient waste to be reused in future.

In this studies, content analysis is used. This technique includes interpretations of the
content where similar information is categorised in different groups according to the meaning
of the content to create systematic and objective criteria in analysing symbolic content of the
documents.

For motivations for sustainable zero waste construction waste management, there are
many types of punishment and rewards that may enhance the worker’s awareness in 3R
(reuse, recycle and reduce). For positive strategies, it is suggested that reward schemes are
used to motivate construction workers in waste reduction.

From the incentive theory perspective, New South Wales, the government’s section 88
Landfill Levy charges are applicable to regulated areas. This motivates the industry
manufacturers and contractors to reuse and recycle more materials in the construction
industry.

For goal’s self-satisfaction and fulfilment, the Australian Ethical Investment reuse high
proportions of materials used as possible to reach the goal of receiving six stars in GBCA’s
Green Star rating tools. Besides that, Ontera Modular Carpets set it goal to receive ISO 14001
so they collects and reuses tonnes of used carpet.

This studies has categorised the 15 case studies from Edge Environment Pty Ltd
according to types of sustainable construction management activities, the three major criteria
in sustainable development and motivation to engage in sustainable construction waste
management activities.
The results of the case studies in Australia on the possibility of co-development in
social, economic and environmental aspect in construction projects and material of production
companies that aim to reduce construction waste, founds that it can attain the win-win
situation.
From the economic point of view, sustainable zero waste activity does not really leads
to high cost. Besides, some of the evidence shows that the sustainable action may lead to
higher economic profits due to home-buyers prefer to purchase houses from builders that use
product with low environmental impact.
In term of social perspective, it may enhance the public health and safety. For example
PIPA recycling scheme recycles PVC and reduces the PVC in landfill site and this lower the
health risk of the potential PVC fire in landfill. Besides that, sustainable building activities may
help to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR).
From the environment perspective, it may reduce the landfill pressure.
 As a conclusion, many state government in Australia have initiated different strategies
to reduce construction waste. It is suggested that sustainable construction waste management
for example, co-development in economic, social and environment was feasible in many case
studies despite a few experienced and increase in construction costs.