Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Waste Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

An empirical study of construction and demolition waste generation and

implication of recycling
Rashidul Islam a,⇑, Tasnia Hassan Nazifa b, Adhi Yuniarto c, A.S.M. Shanawaz Uddin b, Salmiati Salmiati d,
Shamsuddin Shahid b
a
Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
b
School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
c
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil, Environmental and Geo-Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Kampus ITS Sukolilo, Surabaya 60111,
Indonesia
d
Centre for Envirnmental Sustainability and Water Security (IPASA), Research Institute for Sustainable Environment (RISE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai,
Johor, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Associated with the continuing increase of construction activities such as infrastructure projects, com-
Received 28 January 2019 mercial buildings and housing programs, Bangladesh has been experiencing a rapid increase of construc-
Revised 5 April 2019 tion and demolition (C&D) waste. Till now, the generation rate of C&D waste has not been well
Accepted 26 May 2019
understood or not explicitly documented in Bangladesh. This study aims to provide an approach to esti-
mate C&D waste generation using waste generation rates (WGR) through regression analysis.
Furthermore, analyses the economic benefit of recycling C&D waste. The results revealed that WGR
Keywords:
63.74 kg/m2 and 1615 kg/m2 for construction and demolition activities respectively. Approximately, in
Construction and demolition (C&D)
Waste generation rates (WGR)
financial year (FY) 2016, 1.28 million tons (0.149 construction and 1.139 demolition) waste were gener-
Waste characterization ated in Dhaka city, of which the three largest proportions were concrete (60%), brick/block (21%) and
Recycling mortar (9%). After collection they were dumped in either landfills or unauthorized places. Therefore, it
can be summarized as: waste is a resource in wrong place. The results of this study indicate that rapid
urbanization of Dhaka city would likely experience the peak in the generation of C&D waste. This paper
thus designates that C&D waste recycling is an entrepreneurial activity worth venturing into and an
opportunity for extracting economic and environmental benefits from waste. The research findings also
show that recycling of concrete and brick waste can add economic value of around 44.96 million USD. In
addition, recycling of C&D waste leads to important reductions in CO2 emissions, energy use, natural
resources and illegal landfills. Therefore, the findings of WGR and economic values provide valuable
quantitative information for the future C&D waste management exercises of various stakeholders such
as government, industry and academy.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction countries. More specifically this rate was increased to 28% in

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is one of the largest
waste flows in the world. Several research investigate that C&D
waste has reached 30–40% of the total solid waste because of the
large scale construction and demolition activities resulting from
the accelerated urbanization and city rebuilding (Akhtar and
Sarmah, 2018; Jin et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2010). Poon et al.
(2013) shows that this rate is quite higher in Australia (44%).
According to World Bank (2015), the urbanization of Bangladesh
between 2000 and 2010 was the fastest among the South Asian
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mrislam1080@gmail.com (R. Islam).
2011. Rapid urbanization rate is not only responsible for the
increased usage of non-renewable resources, but also for the gen-
eration of large quantity of C&D waste as well as the relevant envi-
ronmental concern (Wu et al., 2016). A number of studies revealed
significant environmental threat and aftermath impacts of C&D
waste including increased pollution, resource depletion and land
deterioration (Coelho and De Brito, 2012; Marzouk and Azab,
2014; Ram and Kalidindi, 2017; Zheng et al., 2017). Due to the
absence of proper waste management plan, a significant portion
(85–90%) of generated C&D waste is simply dumped or used for
landfilling in Bangladesh (Islam, 2016; Abedin and Jahiruddin,
2015), which has become a potential threat to sustainable develop-
ment and ecological security.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.05.049
0956-053X/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
The generation of waste from C&D is much higher in Bangladesh
compared to many developed and developing countries. The lack of
public awareness, the absence of law enforcement, lack of commu-
nity sensitization, and use of old technologies are the major causes
of a higher amount of C&D waste generation in Bangladesh
(Chowdhury et al., 2016b). The C&D waste now, therefore, turning
into one of the main solid waste streams in Bangladesh. The dis-
posal of this huge volume of C&D wastes is becoming a major con-
cern for the country. However, if properly managed, this C&D
waste can be a valuable resource for the country. The waste con-
sists of some inert type solid waste including metal, mortar, con-
crete, brick, plastic, timber, ceramic and glass; approximately
80% of which can be reused. This indicates a high economic value
of C&D waste (Zheng et al., 2017). As the C&D waste comprises
about 10–30% of the generated total solid waste, it can be large
of the source of income. A proper management of C&D waste not
only can mitigate the pollution risk but also generate income.
Estimation of waste generated from C&D is the most important
part of construction waste management. Quantification of con-
struction waste and taking necessary action to address the issue
is necessary for the sustainable development of society. Further-
more, it is important to identify causes of C&D waste generation,
strategizing waste recycling and disposal and estimation of the
economic value of waste. A large number of studies have been con-
ducted for quantification of C&D waste in different countries of the
world such as, Greece (Fatta et al., 2004), Thailand (Kofoworola and
Gheewala, 2009), Taiwan (Huang et al., 2011), Spain (Villoria et al.,
2012), Malaysia (Mah et al., 2016) and China (Ding and Xiao, 2014).
A Number of methods have been proposed for estimation of C&D
waste such as, regression-based empirical model (Yost and
Halstead, 1996), activity-based dynamic model (Hsiao et al.,
2002), spreadsheet-based system analysis model (Wang et al.,
2004), web-based input-process analysis model (Li and Zhang,
2013), integrated approach (Ding and Xiao, 2014; Mah et al.,
2016) and mass balance principle model (Li et al., 2016). Different
amount of waste generation was estimated for different countries
using different methods, ranging from 20 kg/m2 in Thailand to
158 kg/m2 in Portugal.
Despite significant environmental and economic importance, a
reliable estimation of C&D waste in a developing and overpopu-
lated country like Bangladesh is still not easily available. According
to Yasmin and Rahman (2017), the total amount of solid waste
collected from Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh, is
4634 tons/day in 2005, which indicates a waste generation rate
of 0.56 kg/capita/day. Chowdhury et al. (2016b) reported that
Dhaka alone produces approximately 3000 tons/day of solid waste
including construction waste. However, reliable estimation or
empirical model for estimating C&D waste in Bangladesh is still
unavailable. Hence, the policies to address C&D waste organization
in Bangladesh are inadequate. Due to the absence of recycling
facilities and law enforcement, most of these wastes end up being
dumped in unauthorized places or landfills in cities of Bangladesh,
which eventually causes a high negative impact on the environ-
ment and a significant loss to the economy. The C&D waste is,
therefore, becoming a public concern in the country.
At present, C&D waste business is one of the growing industries
in the world and it has been attracting several entrepreneurs to
gain the economic benefit. Processing the C&D wastes to produce
useful substance have led it to be attractive among the young
entrepreneurs in this rising economy. According to Karanjeet
(2013), the market of processed waste is not able to minimize
the waste problem and make a healthy environment for human
being, but it has opened the opportunities for several entrepre-
neurs to gain money for themselves as well as for the country. In
Bangladesh, unorganised collection and subsequent sorting out
by waste pickers between waste generation and landfill is a hin-
11
drance to transform the waste into recycled secondary construc-
tion materials. One key concern of recycling process is to assure
the secure quantitative and qualitative supply of recyclable waste
materials.
Many researchers (Wu et al., 2016; Matter et al., 2015; Roussat
et al., 2009) have identified the significance of a waste manage-
ment plan as part of a C&D waste management strategy. Lu et al.
(2011) investigated that one of the critical steps to make a sound
waste management plan is to estimate quantities of C&D waste
based on waste generation rates (WGR). Owing to its importance,
the investigation of WGR has long been attractive to researchers
and construction practitioners. Lu et al. (2011) examined WGR in
Shenzhen city of South China through conducting on-site waste
sorting and weighing in four construction projects. Kartam et al.
(2004) investigated C&D waster generation rates in Kuwait follow-
ing two different ways (statistical analysis and waste handling sys-
tem). In the USA, Cochran et al. (2007) calculated C&D waste
generated from construction, demolition and rehabilitation of
buildings in Florida. Another study done by Lage et al. (2010) pre-
sented a procedure to find production and composition of C&D
wastes in Spain. As a whole above all studies provide significant
insights into the management of waste in the construction sector.
In developing country like Bangladesh, Fatemi (2012) con-
ducted a study on strategies to reduce C&D waste in Dhaka city
and Chowdhury et al. (2016a) worked on perception of construc-
tion waste management practice in Bangladesh. Furthermore,
Matter et al. (2015) investigated effects of policy for solid waste
recycling and Yasmin and Rahman (2017) focused on solid waste
management practice in Dhaka city. Interestingly, limited research
has been conducted to investigate WGR of C&D waste along with
economic values of recycled construction materials in Bangladesh.
Expanding urbanization and enormous construction activities
related with fast economic development has produced a huge
amount of C&D waste in Bangladesh, which sequentially has trig-
gered a severe degradation of the environment. There is a pressing
necessity to realize the generation of C&D waste in this rapid
developing construction sector. Furthermore, today’s C&D waste
together with environmental impacts in a specific region is no
longer only a local issue. It is therefore important to investigate
the WGR and recycle values in Bangladesh and compare with other
countries so that knowledge developed here can be used in practi-
cal aspect of the country.
Hence, the objective of this study is to estimate the generation
rate of construction and demolition waste, followed by quantifying
potential demand in the market of recycled materials from C&D
waste recycling. In spite of the fact that these outcomes were
derived from a moderately small sample as inspired by the previ-
ous research conducted in Shenzhen city, South China (Lu et al.,
2011). However, they do add to the knowledge of learning that is
presently available for understanding the status of the art of C&D
waste management in Dhaka city. The generation rate was used
for quantifying the total amount of construction waste generated
in Dhaka city. Furthermore, the economic benefit of recycling
C&D waste in Bangladesh are discussed and recommendations
based on the findings of the study are put forward.
2. C&D waste composition and generation
Generally, C&D waste is defined as the solid waste which gener-
ates from construction, renovation and demolition activities. C&D
waste as the left-over, damaged or on-site temporarily used mate-
rials during the sequence of the construction process (Lu et al.,
2011). Zhao et al. (2010) provides more complete and clearer def-
inition of C&D waste ‘‘waste material generated from the process of
renovation, construction and demolition of buildings. Structures
12 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21

comprise all types (both non-residential and residential) of build- Table 1

ings as well as bridges and roads. C&D debris or components gen- Categorization of root causes C&D waste.

erally include asphalt, wood, concrete, metals, wallboard gypsum Group Factors of C&D waste
and roofing materials”. The composition of C&D waste is broadly Design and contract Defects in contract documents
categorized as, inert and non-inert waste (Fig. 1). The inert waste documents Design detailing errors and complexity
materials include soft and hard inert materials, while the non- Frequents changes of design
inert waste includes residual wastes and other material like met- Selection of below standard materials
Procurement Supplier’s and/or shipping errors
als, timber, plastic and glass (Zheng et al., 2017). Typical life cycle Ordering errors
flowchart of different type of C&D waste is shown in Fig. 1. Over allowances
The European Waste Catalogue (EWC) categorize C&D waste Handling and Storage Damage during transportation (off site and
into eight major groups (Lu et al., 2011). Besides, C&D waste is on site)
Supply and storage in loose form
often classified according to its hazardousness. According to gov-
Site management and Workers lack of knowledge and mistakes
ernment of UK, the categorization of C&D waste based on its haz- supervision unused/leftover materials
ardous nature is presented in Appendix A, Table A1. The sources Scarcity and malfunction of equipment
of C&D waste generation have been studied by different research- External Weather condition
ers (Polat et al., 2017). Lack of communication and coordination Theft and/or vandalism
Residual Waste from application process
among parties, lack of supervision and regulations, inferior quality
Packaging
of materials, lack of contractor awareness and lack of budget in
construction projects for managing waste were identified as major
causes to generate C&D waste (Domingo and Luo, 2017). The con- 3. Research methodology
struction activities are categorized into six groups according to
their direct and indirect role in waste generation, as illustrated in The principle of a WGR technique was adopted in this study.
Table 1. This technique also applied in numerous C&D waste management
The composition of C&D waste comprises mostly concrete, research (Lu et al., 2011; Lage et al., 2010). The method that was
metal, mortar, brick/block, plastic and timber. A number of studies applied to gather required information and calculate the rate of
have found that majority of these waste materials triggering neg- C&D waste generation utilizing regression analysis and comprised
ative environmental impacts as a result of frequently disposed of four stages (see Appendix A, Fig. A1). Several methods are available
landfilling and dumping as shown in lifecycle flow chart of C&D for estimation of the WGR as mentioned in introduction. The pre-
waste Fig. 1, even though these C&D waste could be reduced, recy- sent study adopted ‘‘hard” approaches with the following four
cled and reused (Wu et al., 2016; Polat et al., 2017). This landfill steps (Ram and Kalidindi, 2017) considering the flexibility in
amount rate is 33% in the USA and other countries like Hong Kong, method and availability of data.
Canada, UK and Australia is 65%, 35%, 50% and 20–30% respec-
tively (Polat et al., 2017). In contrast, Wu et al. (2016) and i. Estimating the total floor area of C&D activity: The room
Zheng et al. (2017) concluded that introducing an effective man- and common walkway are selected as a representation of
agement at the beginning stage can lessen the C&D waste produc- floor area. The total floor area is calculated by the engineers
tion, avoiding massive landfilling, thereby improving recycling of site investigation and in some cases calculated from the
process. properly scaled drawing.
Another previous study done by Redmond et al. (2008), based ii. Estimating the proportion of different types of buildings:
on developed country like Australia and UK confirmed and encour- Buildings can be classified based on the structural type and
aged that there is much possibility in effective C&D waste manage- use of the building. The amount of construction material dif-
ment among the small business owner-managers. The results also fers from the types of buildings. As a simple example – for
indicate the need for employer, employee, government and commercial buildings, more glass is used instead of bricks.
involvement of the community to improve engagement. Neverthe- In contrast, for residential buildings, the scenario is just
less, there found the negligible amount of interest regarding this in reverse.
underdeveloped or developing country. Further education about iii. Calculating waste generation rate: Research team
the benefits of their business to implement recycled construction deployed into the site with known volume and weight of
waste materials as a good environmental practice may change in bucket, weighing scale and wheelbarrows. First of all, the
the workplace to reduce the internal barriers for participation. C&D wastes were separated in a manner and keep it in the

Metal, timber, Collection Recycling

plastic, glass companies products
C&D waste generation
On-site Recycled
Building Residual recycling aggregates
construction sites Collect Non-Inert C&D waste Recycling Concrete
and sort
C&D facilities in plant products, mortar
waste Inert C&D waste
Building for Recycle and Reuse
demolition Soil and mixed
soft

fragments Landfill
Concrete,
hard

mortar, brick Illegal dumping

sites

Fig. 1. Life cycle flowchart of different categories of C&D waste.

 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
bucket. Each bucket was used for each type of material. The
regression analysis was adopted to derive the WGR similar
to the previous research by Seo and Hwang (1999) and
Ram and Kalidindi (2017).
iv. Integration of data to get total quantity of waste genera-
tion: The equation given below has been used to calculate
the total quantity of C&D waste generation as numerous
researchers also applied this equation (Eq. (1)) (Mah et al.,
2016; Ding and Xiao, 2014).
X
n X
m sity: 2300 kg/m3, 1920 kg/m3 and 2080 kg/m3 respectively (Ram
Q¼ Ai WGRjk ð1Þ
k¼1 j¼1
where Q is the total quantity of C&D waste generated in a region, Ai
is the total amount of C&D activity (unit: m2), WGRjk (unit: kg/m2)
refers to the waste generation rate of jth type of waste material
from kth type of building, m is the number of primary material,
and n is the number of different types of buildings.
The procedure of issuing development permits is scattered at
various offices in Dhaka city and the details of permits are available
only in printed notebooks. In the process of data collection
exercise, the total floor area of C&D activity in a given year was
estimated from several physical visits and exploring the official
website of each offices in Dhaka City Corporation including Dhaka
North, Dhaka South and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipokkho (RAJUK).
The fees claimed for issuing permits are only quoted in records
and are manually inputted before documentation by spreadsheet
software. Also, the fees are made fixed based on the entire floor
area of a building (e.g. BDT 7800 or USD 98 for 500–1000 m2),
and the surveyors/inspectors verify floor area at the time of site
inspection. Hence, the collected fee was observed to be a consistent
source to measure the entire floor area of a building. Using details
of the collected fee for single permit, the over-all floor area of a
demolished building is estimated. In the same way, total floor area
of any construction activities is calculated from the details of
issued construction permits. The estimated gross floor area of con-
struction activity in financial year (FY) 2016 was approximately
2,344,320 m2. Similarly, within same time the total amount of
the buildings demolished in Dhaka city was found nearly
700,251 m2.
4. Results
4.1. Calculation of C&D waste generation
In our study, concrete, mortar, brick/block, metal and timber
were only considered as primary waste materials for estimation.
The contribution of these materials was found more than 90% in
C&D waste generation. After calculating each material, waste
amount values were reported in the scatter plot to estimate the
WGR through regression analysis, as presented in Fig. 2. The best
fitting regression line equation was adopted to estimate the WGR
of each material. Larger R2 value of regression (0.73–0.96) for all
the materials indicates a good fit of the regression line.
The WGR were found 235.37 kg/m2, 83.062 kg/m2 and 35.97 kg/m2
for concrete, brick and mortar respectively as presented in Table 2.
On the other hand, for metal and timber, the WGR were found
33.129 kg/m2 and 13.03 kg/m2 respectively. It is apparent from
Fig. 2 that timber waste rate is outweighed in the construction site
of Bangladesh. This is due to frequent use of timber formwork and
falsework for the placement of steel formwork. Lu et al. (2011)
pointed that old timber formwork left on the site as waste after
being used for 5–6 times. Furthermore, they added some other
reasons for increasing timber waste rate including cutting waste
13
of broken edge after removal of formwork and storing without
any proper protection.
The generation and composition of C&D wastes are quantified
using the regression models. It was found to be 1.28 million tons
(MT), where 0.149 MT of construction waste and 1.139 MT of
demolition waste. The overall mean value of WGR in statistics
comes around 1615 kg/m2 for demolition activities, on the other
hand, it was 63.74 kg/m2 for construction activities. For the conver-
sion of ‘volume’, estimated weight of concrete, brick, and mortar
are multiplied with standard value of the respective material den-
and Kalidindi, 2017).
The WGR estimated in this study was found to be in agreement
with the values estimated in other countries like Spain, China
(Shanghai), India (Chennai) and Malaysia as shown in Table 3.
The WGR calculated 1635.97 kg/m2 in Spain, 1615 kg/m2 in Ban-
gladesh, 1116–1634 kg/m2 in China and maximum in India of
approximately 1734 kg/m2 for demolition activities. On the other
hand, maximum construction WGR found 80 to 114 kg/m2 in Spain
and 32.9 to 98.8 kg/m2 in Malaysia. Previous research has shown
that C&D waste consists roughly 36–40 percent of the total solid
waste generated in the city. In present day on average, around
3200 tons of C& D waste is produced per day while in 2005 per
day total amount of solid waste in Dhaka city was only 4634 tons.
This manuscript does not consider renovation works, illegal demo-
litions, or creation of infrastructure facility. Hence, contribution of
C&D waste in the overall solid waste could be greater than 36–40
percent.
4.2. Composition and contribution of C&D waste
The results obtained from regression analysis followed by
Eq. (1) showed that amount of C&D waste in Dhaka city in the year
of 2016 is nearly 1.28 MT. Amongst the primary compositions, the
largest percentage contributes by concrete debris is 60% followed
by brick waste that contributes 21%. Apart from these two, mortar
waste also accounted a large portion of C&D waste that is 9%.
Statistically, these three types of major waste materials contribute
90% as a whole. Obviously, it is very difficult to manage this large
volume of waste materials. From the data in Fig. 3, it is apparent
that there is also a noticeable percentage of metal and timber
waste and their contribution is equally 3% of all wastes. Despite
this, other waste materials ratios are much less than the waste
briefed above, nonetheless environmental impacts of this minor
portion demand attention as environmentally hazardous heavy
components are available there for example As, Zn and Cd
(Wu et al., 2016). The generation amount of C&D waste in Dhaka
city and its compositions and contributions are depicted in Fig. 3.
The WGR is different based on structure types and building types,
at the same time distribution of generation of C&D waste is also
heterogeneous, the details are presented in Fig. 4.
5. Discussion
5.1. Comparison with other countries
According to literature concerned with C&D waste treatments
in the European countries, these wastes are well managed even
though it is accounted for roughly 25–30% of solid waste (Zheng
et al., 2017). By 2020, reuse, recycling and recovery will be ampli-
fied to 70% by weight for non-hazardous and other materials of
C&D waste, asserted by EU Waste Framework Directive. The vol-
ume of C&D waste generation of different countries is presented
in Fig. 5 apropos to make the results comparable. Statistically, data
comparison with other developed countries are reported in this
14 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21

Concrete in kg Brick in kg

400000 150000
y = 235.37x y = 83.062x
R² = 0.9195 R² = 0.8652
350000 125000

300000 100000

250000 75000

200000 50000
200 400 600 800 200 400 600 800

Gross Floor Area (GFA) m2 Gross Floor Area (GFA) m2

Mortar in kg Metal in kg

70000 60000
y = 35.97x y = 33.129x
R² = 0.7584 R² = 0.7341
60000 50000

50000 40000

40000 30000

30000 20000
200 400 600 800 200 400 600 800
2 2
Gross Floor Area (GFA) m G r o s s F lo o r A r e a ( G F A ) m

Timber in kg Others in kg

17000 28000
y = 13.034x y = 21.055x
R² = 0.9608 R² = 0.831
14000 24000

11000 20000

8000 16000

5000 12000
200 400 600 800 200 400 600 800
2 2
Gross Floor Area (GFA) m G r o s s F lo o r A r e a ( G F A ) m

Fig. 2. Analysis of waste generation in various types of buildings and structures.

Table 2 manuscript, the C&D waste generation in France is comparatively

Waste generation rates in Dhaka city in FY2016.
higher estimated amount 260.20 MT in 2010. The overall estimated
Primary waste materials Waste generation rate C&D waste in all EU Member countries is much lower than that of
(kg/m2) China (Fig. 5), which is beyond 3500 MT. It is mostly because of
Concrete 235.37 mature systems and long-term experimentation of C&D waste
Brick 83.062 management. In France, the combined mechanical and manual
Mortar 35.97
sorting of waste collection and classification mechanism are the
Metal 33.129
Timber 13.034 main driving force to achieve the higher recovery rate. However,
Others (glass, ceramic, plastic, aluminum, copper 21.055 in Dhaka city C&D waste is very poorly managed and annually gen-
and mixed fragments) erated around 1.28 MT of C&D waste, that is geologically very small
 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21 15

Table 3
Comparison of Dhaka city’s C&D waste generation rate with other countries.

Country/Region WGR (kg/m2) Year of data Reference

Construction Demolition
Spain 80 – 2013 Moyano and Agudo (2013)
Spain 114.47 1635.97 2010 Mália et al. (2013)
Malaysia 32.9 to 98.8 1042.80 2016 Mah et al. (2016)
Chennai, India 60 1734.62 2013 Ram and Kalidindi (2017)
Dhaka, Bangladesh 63.74 1615 2016 This study

Metal Concrerte Mortar Brick/Block Compared to other developed countries, the results as pre-
Timber Glass Plastic Insulation materials sented in Fig. 6, Bangladesh owned the considerable percentage
Ceramic Mixed framents Aluminium Copper (3%) of scrap metals in C&D waste, whereas maximum percentage
in China is near about 7%, on the other hand the ratio is less than
1% in US. It is reasonable that most of the contemporary buildings
9%
21% 3% 0.6%
in Bangladesh are constructed of reinforced concrete, which mainly
use large quantity of various steel, aluminum and their alloy in the
0.7% structure. In addition, inert waste like concrete, mortar, brick and
blocks contributes approximately 85% of total weight in Kuwait
0.4%
(Kartam et al., 2004). This ratio is in agreement with Norway
4% 0.7% (84%) (Bergsdal et al., 2007) and the US (77%) (Cochran et al.,
2007). Interestingly, if the ceramic waste is considered an inert
0.9% waste the percentage of those above four waste materials in Spain,
Portugal and China will be maximum 91%, 96%, and 87% respec-
3% 0.4% tively (Mália et al., 2013). These variances reflect variations of type
60%
0.3% of building materials and structures used in various countries.
Cochran et al. (2007) indicated the concrete block frame amounts
for 79.6%, which is roughly 4 times higher of timber frame
Fig. 3. Distribution of C&D waste materials. (20.4%) in US. From the Fig. 6, it can be seen that by far the greatest
proportion of ceramic is found in Spain compared with other coun-
tries. It is for the reason that the Spanish building style generally
variegated. Consequently, the traditional materials like ceramic
only 306 km2 with large population estimated at about 8.50 mil- get preference in Spanish building construction (Zheng et al.,
lion. As shown in Fig. 5, recycling rates in EU countries are certainly 2017). Norway has cold weather as situated in Europe (northern)
higher than China and Bangladesh. The recycling rate in France is and has variety of forests. As a result, wood components are exten-
47%, which is lower than Italy (75%) and UK (86%). It is possibly sively used for construction of habitants. However, since the Sec-
because of low population density in Italy, France and UK, as they ond World War, the functionalism buildings have increased and
are geographically huge but relatively less population. In France, building inclines to be modern and simplified (Swensen, 2012).
the per capita land is 10,072 m2/per person, the per capita land Thus, concrete materials are being used in the Norwegian building.
in the UK and Italy is 3748 m2/per person and 4956 m2/per person Other countries, as depicted in Fig. 6, materials and structures are
respectively (Zheng et al., 2017). On the contrary, in Dhaka city per also diverse as a result of some factors like usage type, culture,
capita land area is only 36 m2/per person. building styles and weather condition.

Concrete Brick Mortar Metal Timber Others

100%

80%
Percentage by weight

60%

40%

20%

0%
Frame shear RC framed (R) LBM (R) Frame shear RC framed (C) LBM (C) Total
wall (R) wall (C)
Note: R refers to residential building and C refers to commercial building

Fig. 4. Distribution of C&D waste generation for different building type.

16 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21

350 Recycling Landfilling Total 120%

350

300 98%
92% 100%

Percentage by weight
86%

Million tons (MT)

250
260.2 75% 73% 80%
71% 69%
200
53% 60%
150 47%

40%
100 29% 31%
25% 27%

14% 41 37 80 20%
50 22 8% 1.28
50
2%
0 0%
France UK Italy Spain Belgium Germany China Bangladesh
(Dhaka)

Fig. 5. Comparison of C&D waste generation and recycling status.

Metal Concrerte Mortar Brick/Block Ceramic Timber Others

100%

80%
Percentage by weight

60%

40%

20%

0%
Kuwait US Norway Spain Portugal China Bangladesh

Fig. 6. Composition of C&D waste in Bangladesh compared to other countries.

5.2. Economic values C&D waste recycling materials used as a waste in a landfill or any other dumpsites are
often negligible. Table 4 represents the resale potential value of
Throughout the building demolition process, we found that C&D waste in China and Bangladesh. The recycling value of metal
electrical wire, other electrical elements, wooden windows and is quite high near to five hundred USD per ton in Bangladesh.
doors were recovered either purpose of reuse or wholesaled in sec- Table 4 shows a recycling value of mortar, ceramic and concrete
ondary markets. Even the small length of steel enclosed in concrete is lower and is calculated less than ten USD/ton. There is a signif-
(after the demolition of structure) is retrieved using gas cutters and icant difference in resale value between these two countries.
sold to steel scrap dealers. Therefore, the wood or steel-related Regarding the recycling potential value estimation, the market val-
ues of recycled goods (metallics and recycled aggregates) in Ban-
gladesh were not well defined in research work. Even though the
Table 4
concrete, brick/block, mortar and other materials do not have
Comparison of recycling potentials values of C&D waste materials. any established secondary market and thereby these poorly han-
dled waste get dumped in either landfill or unauthorized areas.
C&D waste China (USD/ton) Bangladesh Remarks
type (Zheng et al., (USD/ton)
2017) (Authors)
5.2.1. Concrete
Metal 1000 480 Flow to the metal
This study represents concrete waste compose the major part of
industry
to produce new metal C&D waste, calculated about 60%. Hence, the key objective of C&D
products waste disposal is on waste concrete dealing, which may be an ideal
Timber 300 25–32 Recycled to make new aggregate source for production of new concrete. Promoting recy-
products cled aggregates from C&D waste for producing new concrete will
Concrete 40 5–6 Not recycled, but
transported to landfill
reduce the demand on virgin aggregates and it is a substitute to
Mortar 40 5.50–6.50 efficiently manage C&D waste.
Brick/Block 40 12–16 In order to calculate savings of components from C&D waste
Ceramic 40 5–6 recycling, it was calculated that 75% of concrete waste can be
Others 0 0
transformed into aggregates for new concrete (Jain et al., 2018).
 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
Therefore, this study indicates 0.576 MT recycled aggregates is
possible to produce from concrete waste in the manufacture of
fresh concrete.
Q uantity of recycled aggregate ¼ C&DW ðMT Þ  CCW ð%Þ  TRAð%Þ
¼ 1:28MT  60%  75%
¼ 0:576MT
Where,
C&DW = Construction and Demolition waste in this study
(1.28MT)
CCW = Composition of Concrete Waste found in this study (60%)
TRA = Concrete Waste Transformed into Recycled Aggregate
(75%)
The estimated economic potential value is 36.75 million USD of
0.576 MT recycled aggregate (Table 5). However, the consumption
of natural aggregate was estimated 81.80 MT in 2016 (Mohammed
et al., 2016). It is noticeable that economy value for new aggregate
was calculated 5.23 billion USD, which implies that only Dhaka
city’s recycled aggregates potential value accounts for around
0.71% of the total. However, this saving range is 6–7% for aggregate
in neighboring country India (Jain et al., 2018).
The recycled aggregate is suitable in production of concrete less
than or equal to C30 (compressive strength 30 MPa). Earlier study
by Medina et al. (2015) investigate the practicability of reusing
recycled aggregate from C&D waste as a partial (25–50%) replace-
ment for natural coarse aggregate in the manufacture of 30 MPa
fresh concretes. The result shows compressive strength of the con-
cretes at 28 days is 39.82 MPa which is higher than 30 MPa and
would be expected to continue to rise with age due to cement
hydration. Moreover, the slump test findings illustrate that the
inclusion of recycled aggregate had no adverse effect on the work-
ability of the new concretes (slump range 32–43 mm). The British
Standard BS EN 12350-2 correspond to slumps between 10 mm
and 210 mm. Therefore, this type of recycled aggregate can be used
in the production of concrete mainly for concrete driveways, foun-
dation trenching, pipe-bedding, levelling surfaces, shoulders, med-
ian barriers, sidewalks, foundation matters for the construction of
road, fill/base for drainage, hardcore for groundwork and ornamen-
tal urban elements such as park place. Many studies have indicated
that recycled aggregates are better as road base than virgin mate-
rial because of wide particle size distribution (Akhtar and Sarmah,
2018; Zhao et al., 2010). Thus, it is expected to exploit waste con-
crete to the reduction of inert waste materials being sent for land-
fills purpose and thereafter, the natural resources could be
conserved.
5.2.2. Brick
Brick is one of the major components of C&D waste due to tra-
ditional building habits (load bearing masonry) and old-line con-
struction technology. The study result shows that brick waste
generation in Dhaka city is estimated 0.269 MT, the percentage
of C&D waste is 21%. To meet the demand for constructing approx-
imately 4 million new houses annually, the country producing
about 82.80 MT fired clay brick in a year (National Strategy For
Sustainable Brick Production in Bangladesh, 2017). In this period,
the industry economy value of output was estimated 2.53 billion
Table 5
Potential economic values of recycled aggregate in Dhaka city.
Aggregate type Quantity (MT) Unit cost (USD/ton) Total cost (USD)
Natural 81.80 63.75 5.23 billion
Recycled 0.576 63.75 36.75 million
17
USD, coal and clay consumption was 5.68 MT and 186 MT respec-
tively and emission of CO2 was 15.67 MT.
Broken bricks can be mixed with cement and adhesive to pro-
duce blocks. These blocks are mainly suitable for enclosure, green-
ing and ground tile. Utilizing broken bricks as a substitute of raw
material for production of brick should be the third major recycling
method of crushed bricks next to the road foundation (Zhao et al.,
2010).
There are about 353,000 km of rural roads in Bangladesh and
only 97,000 km of rural roads are paved (excluding highways
21,500 km). The rest are undeveloped earth roads which may be
paved in the near future (Planning and Prioritization of Rural
Roads in Bangladesh, 2018). The allocated budget for rural road
construction was approximately 58.80 million USD in fiscal year
2016–2017 (LGED Annual Report, 2016–2017, p-40). It is esti-
mated that 0.269 MT of recycled bricks from C&D waste can be
used as base materials in rural road, the economy value is 8.21 mil-
lion USD. Based on the economic output of recycled bricks in Dhaka
city, it has potential to save 13.96% of rural road construction bud-
get. Entirely utilization of these recycled bricks in road construc-
tion will reduce manufacturing of clay bricks. Subsequently, CO2
emission for the brick industries will be decreased to 0.051 MT
and fertile clay use will be saved up to 0.61 MT. Hence the govern-
ment initiative and mass awareness is necessary to inspire the use
of recycled components in construction industries and lower the
quantity of waste engaged towards landfill.
5.2.3. Mortar
The study findings indicate that a significant amount of mortar
waste (9%) is produced during the generation of C&D waste, by vol-
ume 0.115 MT. Crushed waste mortar has the potential to be a suit-
able replacement for fine aggregate in concrete. Several studies
investigated the possibility of reusing, Jin et al. (2017) observed
the possible application of this recycled material in ‘‘green” con-
crete masonry blocks. This ‘‘green” building materials are still lim-
ited in their utilizations, such as in non-load bearing partition walls
and ornamental urban elements. The boom of real estate and
infrastructure resulted large demand of construction materials,
which indicates the potential demand of recycled materials. A
comprehensive economic value estimation of recycled mortar in
Bangladesh is difficult due to unavailability of recycling and reuse
data and existing price. The centrally managed and synchronized
system needs to be improved where the entire track of C&D waste
generation to achieve the target recycling rate.
5.2.4. Timber
Although timber is not increasing in the waste stream, the tim-
ber waste generation in Dhaka is estimated 0.038 MT that is 3% of
total C&D waste. In Bangladesh, de-nailed and clean boards or tim-
bers are professionally recycled and reprocessed by contractor
groups to avoid additional buying cost of construction materials.
Winkler (2010) described that wood is a multipurpose material
and can often be reused as ‘‘framing lumber” in new building pro-
jects considering the dimensions of the timber are appropriate.
There are several value-added uses and normal applications for
recycled wood such as chip board production, erosion control, fer-
tilizer amendment in composting and energy recovery. A signifi-
cant demand for wood flour is evolving as a low-cost filler in
wood fiber- plastic composite lumber, however it necessitates a
very clean wood supply. In Bangladesh, timber waste can be a suit-
able substitution of coal in brick industry. The country imported
3.129 MT coal to fulfill the annual demand in FY2016 (The U.S.
Energy Information Administration, 2017). Total consumption of
coal was 5.68 MT for brick industry in FY2016 can be partially cov-
ered by output of waste wood such as 0.038 MT after recycling. At
present, the country has no accurate information on recycling or
18 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
recovering the waste wood, hence potential economic value esti-
mation is uncertain. An appropriate processing method needs to
be established for continuous observation of C&D waste all over
the country.
5.2.5. Metal
Metal waste from construction projects is usually quite low due
to highest values of any recycled building materials. The study
reveals percentage of metal waste is 3% of C&D waste, which is
approximately 0.038 MT in FY2016. Steel usage of construction
industries have increased from 2.80 MT (2014) to 5.50 MT (2016)
in Bangladesh (Annual report of Bangladesh Auto Re-Rolling &
Steel Mills Association, 2017). Metal recycling industry is fast
growing across the country due to their higher monetary value
and availability of buyers for well sorted metal waste. High prices
of metal encourage contractor to collect more reinforcement bars
from mixed C&D waste by hand or with magnets on construction
site. Besides, metal industries also purchase distorted reinforce-
ment bars from individual scavenging at dumpsite. In China, steel
waste recycled from C&D waste made a small contribution to the
total steel production of about 5% in 2005 (Zhao et al., 2010). How-
ever, there are no data available on recycling and reusing of metal
waste in Dhaka to estimate the financial contribution of this waste
material in metal industry. A comprehensive system and law
enforcement need to be developed to efficiently utilize the C&D
waste also mass awareness is much required.
5.2.6. Others
There are different kinds of material that are possible to be
recycled from construction and demolition projects, particularly
plasterboard, metals, glass, plastics, floor and wall covering, carton,
cardboard and tiles etc. According to Matter et al. (2013) the recy-
cling industry is continuously developing in Bangladesh and set-
ting up workshops to produce a huge quantity of recycled
household stuffs from discarded plastic and cardboard. Regional
demand and global resource scarcity for recyclable components
to support foreign and domestic industry also encourage formal
recycling arena. The local industries, companies producing house-
wares, small rural market shops are major purchasers of recycled
construction waste materials. Despite their low quality, these recy-
cled components are competitive in the market since they are low-
priced than the new one. For example, in 2015 the cost of recycled
plastics were approximately three times less than the price of the
new imported sample (Matter et al., 2015). Recycled glass are
increasing demand as a replacement for fine aggregate in concrete
production and for coarse aggregate in hot-mix asphalt
(Mohajerani et al., 2017). Another study addresses ceramic waste
as a partial substitute (25%) for natural coarse aggregate in the
manufacture of fresh concrete (Medina et al., 2014). The results
confirm that concrete made with ceramic waste can be used in
drinking water deposits and pipes as it has not adverse effect
(pH or electrical conductivity) on water quality for human con-
sumption. Parallel to the international market based on recycled
material, with a high demand from India, Japan, China, are further
prompting more recycling activities in Bangladesh. Therefore, recy-
cling activities highlight the importance of better C&D waste man-
agement to deliver high quality recycled material.
5.3. Environmental effect of C&D waste recycling
Fig. 5 shows landfill proportion of C&D waste in different coun-
tries including Bangladesh. The current dumping condition is the
worst scenario in Bangladesh (recycling rate is extremely low).
Amongst all types of C&D wastes, mortar, concrete, bricks/blocks
and ceramic altogether contributes very high percentage of the
landfill. However, non-inert C&D wastes, which are a mixture of
different types of waste such as gypsum, plastics, glass, insulating
materials, mixed and bituminous fragments. They may drain heavy
metals and toxic organic elements and then poses environmental
hazards.
Dumping the waste in landfill rises some environmental con-
cerns. For example, contaminates soil due to the alkaline matter,
increases energy consumption for transportation and indirectly
adding to the phenomena of global warming such as worsening
quality of air and heat waves (Marzouk and Azab, 2014). The future
issue is associated with the loss of accumulated energy of the dis-
posed wastes. Roussat et al. (2009) noted that C&D waste recycling
saves the accumulated energy in the waste materials which is the
driving force behind emission savings. Coelho and de Brito (2013)
conducted a research to evaluate environmental impacts of GHG
produced from primary and recycled aggregates. The research con-
cludes that CO2 emissions from virgin raw materials are always
higher than recycled aggregate (approximately 16% higher for
CO2 emissions and 35% higher for primary energy consumption).
It is worth noting that various pollutant emission resulted from
disposals in landfills during their lifecycle and emissions prevented
by recycling.
Bangladesh produces only 0.19% (73.19 MT) of the global GHG
emission, which is total energy consumption of 35.97 mtoe (mil-
lion tons oil equivalent) (Sarkar et al., 2015). The estimated yearly
average growth of CO2 emission by 6.7% which is higher than
annual average growth of GDP (5.25%) in Bangladesh. Despite hav-
ing little contribution to global carbon emission, Bangladesh is one
of the most vulnerable countries due to adverse impact of global
climate change. The country facing deforestation, droughts,
extreme weather events and rising of sea level.
Therefore, developing countries like Bangladesh are bearing bur-
den of extreme carbon emissions caused by developed countries.
However, some developed countries agreed to reduce GHG emission
without hampering their industrialization and development and
their standard of living. For example, the Waxman-Markey bill
(American Clean Energy and Security Act) passed by the U.S. House
of Representatives in June 2009 agreed that to reduce their carbon
emissions by 17 percent in 2020 and by 83 percent in 2050. Bangla-
desh government also needs to develop a national mitigation policy
and promote the use and development of green technology and
renewable energy for sustainable energy and environment.
5.4. Policy relevance
C&D wastes are inert in nature and do not poses any acute
health risks like medical waste. However, poorly managed of
C&D waste may create public annoyance, occupy landfill area
and result in misuse of non-renewable resources. Recycling of
C&D waste is a substitute to not only efficiently handle these waste
materials, but also offers conservation of natural materials.
To some extent Bangladeshi authorities have acknowledged
savings of natural resources and developed policy to inspire waste
recycling acts. It is significant to remember that National 3R Strat-
egy for Waste Management and Solid Waste Management Han-
dling Rules released by Ministry of Environment and Forests,
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (MoEF,
2010). It discusses the guidelines of waste segregation, collection
and disposal mechanism; promoting resource recoveries and less-
ening of greenhouse gases emissions. Strictly enforcing current
regulations would reduce the current landfilling process and posi-
tively affect the living atmosphere. Enforcement of legislation by
Japan government, the recycling rates improved remarkably from
57% in 1996 to 90% in 2008 (Global Environment Center Osaka
Japan, 2012 cited by Akhtar and Sarmah, 2018). In this regulation
consideration of recycled materials is compulsory in the construc-
tion industry. Therefore, the government initiatives are necessary
 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
to appreciate the use of recycled materials and avoid C&D waste
disposal in landfill. However, after recycling C&D waste in rural
area can be discharged as backfilling components for emerging
rural infrastructure and housing.
In Bangladesh, Fig. 5 shows, landfilling is mentioned as the key
method to regulate waste and on-site disposals are taken as norms.
Like Bangladesh, many developing and developed countries shows
a lower recycling rate of C&D waste for example, in New Zealand
(80%), South Africa (90%) and Croatia (90%) end up in the landfills
(Akhtar and Sarmah, 2018). Efforts are made by the Bangladesh
government to decrease this massive burden from landfills. In
recent years Local Government Engineering Division (LGED), Ban-
gladesh signed an agreement with an Italian company SRL via Pri-
ore Berengario in 2011 to establish a power plant fuel ran by
inorganic waste from landfills (Matter et al., 2015). Landfill site will
be provided by Dhaka City Corporation and tax holidays will apply
for waste treatment facilities. However, the facility has yet to be
built.
Some policy incentives for example tax holidays for up to ten
years for all type of construction waste treatment and recycling
plants encourage opportunities from standardization for recycling
enterprises. Formalized recycling companies, however, will still
normally buy recyclables products from small business holders/
informal traders. The following strategies are recommended to
enhance the efficiency of C&D waste management.
i. Government legislation should be applied to increase C&D
waste recycling
ii. Allocation of space in each neighborhood for storage and
transfer of recyclables waste
iii. Applying economic instrument and no tax can be added to
inspire in recycling activities.
iv. Providing training and make consciousness among the
workers in a construction site.
v. Promote good quality of recycled products to inspire recy-
cling of C&D waste.
5.5. Contribution of the study
This research has practical applications to practitioners, such as,
designers, builders, contractors and policy-makers; and con-
tributes to C&D waste management literature. The findings indi-
cated that the Dhaka city generated 1.28 MT of C&D waste in
FY2016. Entirely recycling of concrete and brick waste can add
approximately 44.96 million USD in the national economy. This
input surely increase the national economy, since there is no accu-
rate information of mortar, timber and metal recycling values.
However, this contribution is remarkably high in many developed
countries. For example, USA and South Korea added 7 billion USD
and 2.10 billion USD respectively in their economy from C&D
waste recycling industry (Akhtar and Sarmah, 2018). This potential
value is compelling and provides a rough idea about the impact of
this in the country’s economy. Recycling of C&D waste not only
enhanced countries economy but also helped to improve their nat-
ural resources conservation.
Therefore, Government of Peoples Republic of Bangladesh needs
to make stringent strategies to encourage owners and contractors
to choose for recycling of C&D waste. In 1995, for the first time,
Bangladesh introduced ‘‘The Bangladesh Environmental Conserva-
tion Act 1995” (MoEF, 1995). The Conservation Act specify differ-
ent responsibilities for waste generators, service providers and
their contractors and local municipal authority for handling and
recycling of C&D waste. The policies have been introduced with
the goal to apply the 3R approach in the construction industry.
More recently, the necessity of waste collection and recycling
19
was repeated in the ‘‘Draft National Urban Sector Policy of 2011”
(Matter et al., 2015).
This study also emphasizes the gap in availability of reliable
data on C&D waste generation in developing countries like Bangla-
desh in South Asia. The significance of ‘‘hard” technique (four
steps) in estimation of C&D waste generation in cities in develop-
ing countries has been recognized.
6. Conclusion and recommendations
C&D waste can certainly make an important contribution to the
national economy while reducing the use of natural resources and
fulfilling the desired material necessity in different construction
projects. The generation of C&D waste is becoming a tremendous
problem in the construction industry in Dhaka as the extensive
building and infrastructure development is frequent here and pre-
dicted to increase more. WGR for demolition activities in Dhaka
was compared with the values of several other developed countries
like Spain, China and Malaysia. While the value of Dhaka (1615 kg/m2)
is quite close as compared with those countries presently. Hence,
attention needs to be paid on developing and implementing better
waste management plans. Prior to designing corresponding man-
agement measures, it is imperative to understand the amount,
composition and flows of the generated waste. In this paper, statis-
tical calculation of result provides a comprehensive analysis of
generation and disposal of C&D waste in Dhaka city for FY2016,
afterwards an analysis of their recycling and landfill potentials
with a comparison of developed countries. In FY2016, the annual
generation of C&D waste is approximately 1.28 MT, in which 12%
was construction waste and 88% was demolition waste. This result
indicates that demolition waste dominates the C&D waste in
Dhaka city and need to pay more attention in the relevant waste
management policy.
Regarding the composition of C&D waste, the three wastes i.e.
concrete, brick and mortar accounted for 90 percent of the total
amount. Compared with other developed countries (China) the
waste reselling and recycling value is relatively lower. From the eco-
nomic perspective, increasing the recycling rate of C&D waste could
benefit the sustainable urban development. The study findings
show that entire recycling of concrete (0.576 MT) and brick (0.269
MT) waste can contribute to the national economy about 44.96 mil-
lion USD. Particularly, this finding would be beneficial to stimulate
interest of recyclers. The landfilling proportion through C&D waste
is more than 90 percent and this ratio could be reduced by increas-
ing the recycling rate. This indicates that increasing C&D waste recy-
cling rate could help to mitigate the contradiction between supply
and demand of land resources in fast-developing cities. The study
shows waste landfilling is extremely high and recycling of C&D
waste ensures a sustainable environment and economy.
This research upholds the most recent data on C&D waste gen-
eration as well as recycled product values if used in construction
industry. The data discussed in this study also put a comparison
with other developed countries which strongly indicates that recy-
cled construction products have a great economic value in Bangla-
desh too. It is expected that findings from the research will
enhance the creditability of statistics that are available for under-
standing C&D waste management in Bangladesh. In addition, anal-
ysis of quantifying the WGR will serve as valuable quantitative
information for benchmarking different C&D waste management
practices including recycling activities.
Indeed, Bangladesh has not established effective C&D waste
classification management system and environmental impact
assessment due to inadequate information on generation charac-
teristics and structure. As a result, it is difficult to select a reason-
able disposal strategy and select the suitable resource recovery
20 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21
technology. These results can be reported to scholars, practitioners
and decision-makers to overcome similar challenges of limited
data availability. In addition, in the regional and national levels,
the method adopted in this study can provide an effective tool
for the rapid calculation of generation and flow of C&D waste.
From the data collection experience, it is recommended that
Government Agencies need to revise the documents include build-
ing details, for example the type of structural, roofing systems,
materials and total floor area. The authors are strongly agreed with
that enforcement of existing laws could actually facilitate the
implementation of waste minimization effectively.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.05.049.
References
Abedin, M.A., Jahiruddin, M., 2015. Waste generation and management in
Bangladesh: an overview. Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. 1 (1), 114–120.
Akhtar, A., Sarmah, A.K., 2018. C&D waste generation and properties of recycled
aggregate concrete: a global perspective. J. Clean. Prod. 186, 262–281.
Annual report of Bangladesh Auto Re-Rolling & Steel Mills Association, 2017.
Challenging year for steelmakers. (2017, December 25). https://www.
thedailystar.net/business/challenging-year-for-steelmakers-in-bangladesh-
1509985.
Bergsdal, H., Bohne, R.A., BrattebÃß, H., 2007. Projection of construction and
demolition waste in Norway. J. of Indust. Ecolo. 11, 27–39.
Chowdhury, F.H., Raihan, M.T., Islam, G.M.S., Ramiz, F., 2016a. Construction waste
management practice: Bangladesh perception. In: 3rd International Conference
on Advances in Civil Engineering (ICACE 2016), Chittagong, Bangladesh, pp.
289–294.
Chowdhury, M., Upadhyay, A., Briggs, A., Belal, M., 2016b. An empirical analysis of
green supply chain management practices in Bangladesh construction industry.
In: European Operation Management Association (EurOMA) Conference 2016,
17–22 June 2016, Trondheim, Norway.
Cochran, K., Townsend, T., Reinhart, D., Heck, H., 2007. Estimation of regional
building-related C&D debris generation and composition: case study for Florida,
US. Waste Manage. 27, 921–931.
Coelho, A., De Brito, J., 2012. Influence of construction and demolition waste
management on the environmental impact of buildings. Waste Manage. 32 (3),
532–541.
Coelho, A., De Brito, J., 2013. Economic viability analysis of a construction and
demolition waste recycling plant in Portugal–part I: location, materials,
technology and economic analysis. J. Clean. Prod. 39, 338–352.
Ding, T., Xiao, J., 2014. Estimation of building-related construction and demolition
waste in Shanghai. Waste Manage. 34, 2327–2334.
Domingo, N., Luo, H., 2017. Canterbury earthquake construction and demolition
waste management: issues and improvement suggestions. Int. J. Disaster Risk
Reduct. 22, 130–138.
Fatemi, M.N., 2012. Strategies to reduce construction and demolition (C&D) waste
for sustainable building design in Dhaka: role of architects. Int. Seminar Arch.:
Educat., Practice Res. Dhaka, Bangladesh, 543–550.
Fatta, D., Papadopoulos, A., Kourmoussis, F., 2004. Estimation methods for the
generation of construction and demolition waste in Greece. Thomas Telford,
25–33.
Global Environment Center Osaka Japan, 2012. Laws and support systems for
promoting waste recycling in Japan [WWW Document]. URL http://nett21.gec.
jp/Ecotowns/LawSupportSystems.pdf.
Hsiao, T.Y., Huang, Y.T., Yu, Y.H., 2002. Modeling materials flow of waste concrete
from construction and demolition wastes in Taiwan. Resour. Policy 28 (1–2),
39–47.
Huang, R.Y., Yeh, L.H., Chen, H.H., Yau, J.T., 2011. Estimation of construction waste
generation and management in Taiwan. In: Advanced Materials Research, vol.
243, pp. 6292–6295.
Islam, F.S., 2016. Solid waste management system in Dhaka City of Bangladesh. J.
Modern Sci. Technol. 4 (1), 192–209.
Jain, S., Singhal, S., Jain, N.K., 2018. Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) in
India: generation rate and implications of C&DW recycling. Int. J. Constr.
Manage., 1–10
Jin, R., Li, B., Zhou, T., Wanatowski, D., Piroozfar, P., 2017. An empirical study of
perceptions towards construction and demolition waste recycling and reuse in
China. Resour., Conserv. Recycling 126, 86–98.
Karanjeet, K., 2013. Social Entrepreneurship: an alternative solution for solid waste
problem in Kathmandu city (Master’s thesis, Universitetet i Nordland).
Kartam, N., Al-Mutairi, N., Al-Humoud, J., 2004. Environmental management of
construction and demolition waste in Kuwait. Waste Manage. 24, 1049–1059.
Kofoworola, O.F., Gheewala, S.H., 2009. Estimation of construction waste generation
and management in Thailand. Waste Manage. 29 (2), 731–738.
Lage, I.M., Herrero, C.V., Ordóñez, J.L.P., 2010. Estimation of the annual production
and composition of C&D Debris in Galicia (Spain). Waste Manage. 30 (4), 636–
645.
Li, Y., Zhang, X., 2013. Web-based construction waste estimation system for
building construction projects. Autom. Constr. 35, 142–156.
Li, Y., Zhang, X., Ding, G., Feng, Z., 2016. Developing a quantitative construction
waste estimation model for building construction projects. Resour., Conserv.
Recycling 106, 9–20.
Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) Annual Report FY, 2016. Local
Government Division (LGD), Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development
and Co-operatives, pp. 1–176.
Lu, W., Yuan, H., Li, J., Hao, J.J., Mi, X., Ding, Z., 2011. An empirical investigation of
construction and demolition waste generation rates in Shenzhen city, South
China. Waste Manage. 31, 680–687.
Mah, C.M., Fujiwara, T., Ho, C.S., 2016. C&D waste generation rates for high-rise
buildings in Malaysia. Waste Manage. Res. 34, 1224–1230.
Mália, M., de Brito, J., Pinheiro, M.D., Bravo, M., 2013. Construction and demolition
waste indicators. Waste Manage. Res. 31, 241–255.
Marzouk, M., Azab, S., 2014. Environmental and economic impact assessment of
C&D waste disposal using system dynamics. Resour., Conserv. Recycling 82, 41–
49.
Matter, A., Ahsan, M., Marbach, M., Zurbrügg, C., 2015. Impacts of policy and market
incentives for solid waste recycling in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Waste Manage. 39,
321–328.
Matter, A., Dietschi, M., Zurbrügg, C., 2013. Improving the informal recycling sector
through segregation of waste in the household–The case of Dhaka Bangladesh.
Habitat Int. 38, 150–156.
Medina, C., Frías, M., de Rojas, M.I.S., 2014. Leaching in concretes containing
recycled ceramic aggregate from the sanitary ware industry. J. Clean. Prod. 66,
85–91.
Medina, C., Zhu, W., Howind, T., Frías, M., de Rojas, M.S., 2015. Effect of the
constituents (asphalt, clay materials, floating particles and fines) of
construction and demolition waste on the properties of recycled concretes.
Constr. Build. Mater. 79, 22–33.
MoEF Ministry of Environment and Forests, 1995. The Bangladesh Environment
Conservation Act. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
MoEF Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010. National 3 R Strategy for Waste
Management. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
Mohajerani, A., Vajna, J., Cheung, T.H.H., Kurmus, H., Arulrajah, A., Horpibulsuk, S.,
2017. Practical recycling applications of crushed waste glass in construction
materials: a review. Constr. Build. Mater. 156, 443–467.
Mohammed, T.U., Mohammad, N.I., Sutradhar, S.K., Chowdhury, M.H.R., Hasnat,
A., Khatib, J.M., 2016. Sustainability of construction materials in Bangladesh.
In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Sustainable
Construction Materials and Technologies (SCMT4), August 7–11, 2016, Las
Vegas, USA.
Moyano, P., Agudo, A., 2013. Selective classification and quantification model of
C&D waste from material resources consumed in residential building. Waste
Manage. Res. 31 (5), 458–474.
National Strategy For Sustainable Brick Production in Bangladesh, 2017.
Department of Environment Ministry of Environment, Government of The
People’s Republic of Bangladesh, pp. 1–42.
Planning and Prioritization of Rural Roads in Bangladesh, 2018. Department of
Urban and Regional Planning (DURP), Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology (BUET), Final Report, vol. 1, pp. 1–67.
Polat, G., Damci, A., Turkoglu, H., Gurgun, A.P., 2017. Identification of root causes of
C&D waste: the case of Turkey. Proc. Eng. 196, 948–955.
Poon, C.S., Yu, A.T., Wong, A., Yip, R., 2013. Quantifying the impact of construction
waste charging scheme on construction waste management in Hong Kong. J.
Constr. Eng. Manage. 139 (5), 466–479.
Ram, V., Kalidindi, S.N., 2017. Estimation of construction and demolition waste
using waste generation rates in Chennai, India. Waste Manage. Res. 35, 610–
617.
Redmond, J., Walker, E., Wang, C., 2008. Issues for small businesses with waste
management. J. of env. Manage. 88, 275–285.
Roussat, N., Dujet, C., Mehu, J., 2009. Choosing a sustainable demolition waste
management strategy using multicriteria decision analysis. Waste Manage. 29
(1), 12–20.
Sarkar, M.S., Sadeka, S., Sikdar, M., Zaman, B., 2015. Energy consumption and CO2
emission in Bangladesh: trends and policy implications. Asia Pacific J. Energy
Environ. 2 (3), 175–182.
Seo, S., Hwang, Y., 1999. An estimation of construction and demolition debris in
Seoul, Korea: waste amount, type, and estimating model. J. Air Waste Manage.
Assoc. 49, 980–985.
Swensen, G., 2012. Integration of historic fabric in new urban development—a
Norwegian case-study. Landscape Urban Plan. 107, 380–388.
Villoria, P., del Río, M., Porras-Amores, C., 2012. Estimation of construction and
demolition waste volume generation in new residential buildings in Spain.
Waste Manage. Res. 30 (2), 137–146.
Wang, J.Y., Touran, A., Fadlalla, H., 2004. A systems analysis tool for construction
and demolition wastes management. Waste Manage. 24 (10), 989–997.
Winkler, G., 2010. Recycling Construction and Demolition Waste: A LEED-based
Toolkit. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
 R. Islam et al. / Waste Management 95 (2019) 10–21 21

Wu, H., Wang, J., Duan, H., Ouyang, L., Huang, W., Zuo, J., 2016. An innovative
approach to managing demolition waste via GIS (geographic information
system): a case study in Shenzhen city, China. J. Clean. Prod. 112, 494–503.
Yasmin, S., Rahman, M.I., 2017. A review of solid waste management practice in
Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Int. J. Environ. Protect. Policy 5, 19.
Yost, P.A., Halstead, J.M.A., 1996. Methodology for quantifying the volume of
construction waste. Waste Manage. Res. 14 (5), 453–461.
Zhao, W., Leeftink, R.B., Rotter, V.S., 2010. Evaluation of the economic feasibility for
the recycling of construction and demolition waste in China—the case of
Chongqing. Resour., Conserv. Recycling 54 (6), 377–389.
Zheng, L., Wu, H., Zhang, H., Song, Q., 2017. Characterizing the generation and flows
of construction and demolition waste in china. Constr. Build. Mater. 136, 405–
413.