Analysis of factors affecting construction and demolition waste safe disposal in Egypt

Abstract

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) is produced in conjunction with construction projects at various phases. In Egypt's situation, the disposal of CDW issue has grown to be a major problem, and there is an urgent need to discover a safe disposal method. Based on the exploration of the literature, three main factors that affect the safe disposal of CDW (SDCDW) were found as follows: (1) management of route, collection and transportation; (2) determination of illegal waste dumping sites; and (3) construction waste tracking and scheduling. In this paper, a wide sample of construction industry academics and practitioners were approached by an online survey questionnaire for (1) investigating the applicability and effectiveness of SDCDW factors in the Egyptian construction industry; and (2) examining the relationship between these factors and SDCDW. Different statistical methods were used such as Relative Importance Index (RII) to rank the framework items. In addition, Bi-variate correlation analysis was conducted to test the effectiveness of automation techniques included in the framework with respect to the level of agreement upon reaching safe disposal of CDW. The findings showed that (1) among the various factors, “selection of the shortest path transport route” has the highest applicability, while “detection of CDW illegal disposal sites” is the most effective factor; and (2) there exist positive statistical relationships between SDCDW and all of the various factors. The findings show that creating a conceptual framework for SDCDW in Egypt, which includes these various elements, is necessary as the next research initiative.