Abstract
Construction waste management (CWM) has received worldwide attention for some time. As a result, a plethora of research, investigating a wide array of CWM issues such as their profiles, practices, and performance, has been reported in individual economies around the globe. However, a cross-jurisdictional comparison of these issues is limitedly presented in the literature despite its importance to benchmarking performance and identifying best CWM practices in the context of globalization whereby knowledge sharing has already transcended traditional country boundaries. The aim of this ex post facto research is to compare CWM profiles, practices, and performance in Australia, Europe (Europe refers to EU-27 member countries in the European Union, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Romania.), Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom at a national-level, with a view to facilitating CWM knowledge sharing internationally. It does so by triangulating empirical data collected from various national statistical yearbooks with research papers and professional reports on CWM in these economies. It is found that in producing one million (US) dollars’ work, construction contributes a volume of solid waste ranging from 28 to 121 tons among countries. Conscientious CWM practices can make a significant difference in reducing, reusing, or recycling construction waste, as evident in the large variation in the CWM performance. While it might be oversimplified to conclude that the best practices in one country can be applied in another, the research provides insightful references into sharing CWM knowledge across boundaries.
Highlights
During the past decades, construction and demolition (C & D) waste has received increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers around the world [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
This study considers the adoption of various green evaluation systems as an emerging Construction waste management (CWM) practice, but examines it as an overarching practice that could take place in any of the following four types: P1: Avoid P2: Reduce P3: Reuse P4: Recycle
This paper conducted a cross-jurisdictional analysis on CWM among Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom
Summary
Construction and demolition (C & D) waste has received increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers around the world [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The statistics from Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department [16] showed that all waste received at landfills reached 13,844 tons per day (tpd) in 2012, or 5.05 million tons a year, of which about 25% is C & D waste It is reported in Mainland China C & D activities produced more than two billion tons of C & D waste in 2011 [17], and it is generally estimated that C & D waste takes up around 30%–40% of total MSW in China [18]. While the understanding of construction waste in individual economies has been significantly improved over the past decades, a cross-jurisdictional comparison of these issues is absent from the literature This is abnormal given that nowadays knowledge sharing has commonly transcended traditional country boundaries with the development of globalization and new information and communication technologies. The paper addresses discrepancies among CWM practices in different economies and draws on data of construction volumes, project types, and construction technologies to link them with waste management performance
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