A LEED Environmental Performance Certificate Application in Terms of Recyclable Content

Abstract

Sustainable construction technologies, which are necessary for sustainable environment are important to minimize environmental impacts of urbanization and for the maximum efficiency of the structure. For this purpose, construction of sustainable/green buildings is a growing trend in Turkey and the world. Solid waste management at green buildings is one of the important parameters for sustainability of the building. In this study, solid waste management in green buildings and the potential use of waste as construction material are investigated within the context of one of the most used certificates in Turkey; LEED NC 2009 environmental performance certificate. First of all, literature about how to use industrial value of the waste as construction material is reviewed and then two buildings which were entitled to get 'gold' category LEED NC 2009 certificate and a building which was not applied for any green building certificate are evaluated in terms of calculation practices. The results show that, usage of waste as a construction material is applicable with little effort in green buildings. classes. First of the classes included waste generated during construction, use and after use of the building. The second class was comprised of the recycled/re-used building materials and elements, which could be directly used as building materials during construction phase. Thus two goals would be served by reusing waste and facilitating sustainable buildings. The most common waste types that were used as construction material were concrete, asphalt, wood, aluminum, and iron. Old concrete as a result of destruction of buildings could be reused as filler material at concrete constructions and as pavement support at road constructions. Also certain components of construction wastes such as aluminum and iron could be recycled and used as raw material in manufacturing new construction materials (2). Wastes that were generated by other industries might also be utilized by integrating them into manufacturing of building components. Wood chip waste and waste from production of lime brick production could be used in brick production (3). Due to low unit weight of waste tires, they could be used as filling material in embankments, retaining walls and the ground fills (4). Marble pieces and powdered marble waste could be used as raw material in the production of cement, lime, calcined dolomite, slag making materials and plaster material (5), as chemical additive for the improvement of uneven ground features (6), as aggregate for