Economic And Environmental Impact Assessment Of Construction And Demolition Waste Recycling And Reuse Using LCA And MCDA Management Tools

Abstract

Reuse and recycling of waste from construction and demolition (C&D) is problematic because the markets for secondary materials have not yet been fully integrated. Decisions regarding the reuse and recycling of building waste materials, however, are beneficial economically to the construction industry, in addition to having environmental and social responsibility outcomes. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of recycling and reuse of C&D waste. It explores how impact categories such as economic and environmental impact can be used to develop a decision-support framework for recycling and reusing building waste. Two case studies of real-life Demolition and New Build projects are selected to demonstrate how waste inventory data can be collected and adopted to support the decision-making process. A thorough review of the available literature revealed a holistic view of C&D waste management and its related economic and environmental impacts. The literature review helped establish a direction for what is needed to develop a decision-support framework. Two management tools (LCA and MCDA) were identified as possible tools needed to complete the decision-support framework. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) (an aspect of MCDA) were adopted to construct the framework, which was to be applied to the case study’s waste management system. The combination of these two management tools enables the full development of a framework that can measure both the economic and environmental impact of the current waste management system, as well as act as a tool for supporting decisions regarding different policy alternatives. Thus, the framework was applied to the Demolition and New Build case studies, and later validated for consistency. The framework delivered a set of positive results that could be useful for those making decisions on policy alternatives. Both the decision making process and waste management policy were selected and facilitated by the new framework. Decision makers' preferences on policy alternatives were ranked as final outcomes, and favoured reducing, recycling and reusing opportunities in C&D waste management. The result depicts an approach that, compared to current waste management practices, demonstrates a strong acceptability in terms of the environment and cost-effectiveness. Thus, the key findings discussed here provide an interesting foundation for future research, which will focus more on other impacts, such as the social and policy impacts of recycling and reusing C&D waste.