Chapter 15 – Construction Waste

Publisher Summary The built environment consumes more natural resources than necessary and therefore generates a large amount of waste. This chapter sheds light on the idea of rethinking construction waste management by reengineering processes and practices to reduce construction waste at source. It examines the concept of waste and definitions. Rethinking waste management in construction requires adopting ‘cyclic’ rather than ‘linear’ approach to design and construction. This requires re-engineering current practice to contribute to a cleaner environment through efficient and cost effective sustainable waste minimization strategies. Following this, the chapter discusses construction waste quantification and source evaluation. It also explores current thinking on construction waste research and appraises the current construction waste management and minimization status in the United Kingdom (UK) in terms of drivers and pressures for change, design and onsite practices, and challenges and enablers. For waste minimization to be effective and self-sustaining, it is important that all stakeholders along the construction supply chain embrace a more proactive approach in dealing with waste. In recognition of the responsibility of the architectural profession, through its leading role in project management and a key player in the construction industry, architects should move beyond the concept of eco-efficiency through bolt-on environmental strategies and strive to adopt eco-effective practices by implementing a holistic approach to design out waste, which will be reinforced in tender documents and implemented during the construction stage, in addition to the capture and dissemination of lessons learnt to inform construction waste reduction baselines and benchmarking in future projects.