Study on Recycling and Reuse of Waste Materials in Building Industry

Abstract

Treatment of rapid growing large quantity of waste materials has been recognized as a major issue in the modern construction industry. It has great impact on both the efficiency and environment of construction projects. Recycling reduces original-resource production so that the environmental impact can be reduced. Simultaneously, recycling brings benefits to the economy. The United States has done a lot in recycling and reuse in building industry, but there are still some insufficient in this area. While China keeps more and more attention in recycling and will try hard to improve the proportion and widen the measures of recycling. From the perspective of these two counties, this paper describes the current state of recycling and reuse of waste materials in the building industry, analyzes the benefits, and puts forward the measures for reuse of waste materials. The paper indicates that the recycling and reuse of waste materials has multiple benefits. Waste materials can be used directly or reused through simple or complex processing, and they can be reused for the same purpose or for a different purpose from the original one. More efforts should be made in recycling and reuse of the construction waste materials.