Diagnosis of the Generation of Solid Waste in the Construction of a Building Under the Approach of Industrial Ecology

Abstract

The construction industry generates 30% of the total solid waste in Chile, causing a high impact on the environment, due to the multiple inefficiencies generated in different stages of the development cycle of the projects, involving design, quality and characteristics of the materials in the construction of the referred project. The study covers only solid waste generated in the construction of high buildings, focusing on the area known as Industrial Ecology (IE). The IE aims to achieve that industrial systems have a behavior similar to that of natural ecosystems, allowing the linear model of production systems to become a cyclical model, promoting the interactions between economy, environment and society, developing the efficiency of industrial processes. The two main tools of IE were used: The Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). MFA was used to obtained indicators from the main products or raw materials that are used and that are transformed into a waste in high buildings construction processes, such as: concrete, wood, iron, sheetrock, tiles and ceramics. The LCA served to identify, quantify and characterize the different potential environmental impacts in the area, such as: climate change, depletion of natural resources and occupation of soils, associated with each of the stages of existence of a product. After these two analyses, it was possible to identify the stage of the process in which the main losses of materials occur in the construction of a high building. In addition, it was possible to identify alternative scenarios of solid waste management among different companies that want to transform this waste into raw materials or by-products, saving production costs, reducing environmental impact and creating different types of industrial symbiosis.