Abstract
The construction industry has been greatly developed in the past few decades, especially in the extensive use of underground space. The increasing amount of waste (e.g., soil, sludge, and rock) generated in the underground construction constitutes an important part of construction and demolition waste (CDW), but the related problems are rarely addressed in an independent quantitative study. In order to facilitate recycling of underground construction waste (UCW), quantitative methods for predicting UCW are proposed based on mass conservation in this study. Through on-site investigation and literature review, the source characteristics of UCW and corresponding recycling potential are firstly analyzed. Secondly, the corresponding quantitative method is proposed for predicting each type of UCW according to the principle of mass conservation. Finally, the proposed quantitative methods are applied in two real underground infrastructure projects to verify the accuracy. The results show that the accuracy of quantitative methods for predicting shield sludge and engineering soil is 82.03-95.79% and 94.49% respectively. The quantitative methods for predicting the amount of UCW proposed in this study is effective. In both cases, underground construction produced a large amount of construction waste with great recycling potential. UCW can theoretically reach 100% recycling, and full reuse and recycling of UCW will bring huge benefits and be conducive to the sustainable development of the construction industry.
Highlights
In order to bring convenience to the precise management of underground construction waste (UCW) and promote the clean and sustainable development of the whole construction industry, this study proposes a relatively accurate quantitative methodology to predict the amount of UCW considering its reuse and recycling
construction and demolition waste (CDW) is the general term for engineering soil, engineering sludge, construction waste, demolition waste, decoration waste, etc. (MOHURD 2019), and engineering soil and engineering sludge are what we focus on in this study
Underground construction produces a large amount of waste with high reuse and recycling value, but few quantitative studies focus on it
Summary
Different from the practices of developed countries, excavated waste mainly buried at landfill sites in China (Zhang et al 2020), while the recycling rate of the excavated soil and rock in western countries such as Ireland is more than 90% and that in Germany is more than 80% (European Commission 2016) Information such as classification and quantity of excavated waste cannot be accurately obtained in the early stages of construction, which is not conducive to the orderly and coordinated development of excavated waste reuse, recycle, and disposal (Diana et al 2015; Riviera et al 2014). In order to bring convenience to the precise management of UCW and promote the clean and sustainable development of the whole construction industry, this study proposes a relatively accurate quantitative methodology to predict the amount of UCW considering its reuse and recycling.
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