Adoption of eco-costs per value ratio concept in construction waste management

Abstract

The rapid growth of Malaysia’s construction industry contributes indirectly to the growth of the economy. With the increase in new building technologies, waste production in construction is rising proportionally. The current construction practices focus on a limited recycling mechanism in which most building waste is discarded at landfills. This is due to the higher preliminary costs for proper waste disposal that must be borne by construction companies. Case studies on implementing Eco-costs per Value Ratio (EVR) index in waste management based on suitable residential projects within the perimeter of several influencing factors are still lacking. Hence, the aim of this study to further explore on the use of EVR in managing construction waste produced from sites. The approach used was close monitoring using Google My Maps, Appsheet and spreadsheet. The cost of disposing off the construction waste from its generation at the initial stage can be reduced if the estimated cost was within the standardised amount. Furthermore, this would determine a better version of any adopted construction method and materials used so that the amount of waste can be reduced. Based on the improved version of EVR index in conventional, semi-IBS construction methods, the finding has indicated between 0.026 and 0.126 based on six samples in Setia Alam from the year 2016 to 2021. Besides, the adoptions of additional assessment process like waste index, waste volume, waste generation rate, and waste level were also done in this research. This created a platform to assess the construction waste and preliminary cost from the perspective of developers. It created a complete assessment tool with a benchmark to assist developers in monitoring construction waste during field inspections. Based on the material waste justification and monitoring using tools and benchmark, future projects can be evaluated more effectively on sites and cost justification by contractors in the preliminary contract can halted from being overpriced. Furthermore, the benchmark between conventional, semi-IBS and IBS creates a progressive monitoring on on-sites waste generation. In addition, Google My Maps and Appsheet also create a cloud-based platform to monitor the amount of waste there.