Facilitating decision making on construction and demolition waste management in Greece through dynamic system modeling

Abstract

Nowadays, construction and demolition processes produce a huge amount of waste. This study has recorded data on the current state of political, institutional, technological, and applied practices, in Greece. Moreover, a system dynamics approach was implemented in order to develop a model, to examine the relationship, between the three aspects of performance that underlie the waste management practices, namely: economic, environmental and social. The proposed model is then converted into a system dynamic model through the software Vensim PLE. The model was implemented using official Eurostat data regarding the produced waste from the construction industry, in Greece, for the study period 2013-2020. The model predicts that an increase in the cost of landfill use will have negative impact on their management performance. A change in the effectiveness of compliance with waste management regulations provides an increase in their management performance, only if all the stakeholders are really committed. Finally, it could be proposed that further standardisation of deposition and processing fees and a combined bonus and penalty system could play an important role in the direction of effective waste management.