Reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery in sustainable construction waste management

Abstract

The construction industry consumes a substantial amount of raw materials in its processes and the output is obviously the product and most importantly the waste material. Other than that, the construction industry is well known as one of the worst environmental polluters. This study is to determine the use of waste minimisation technique in creating sustainable waste management in order to identify the technique which has the most capabilities to reduce on-site waste. The objective of this study is to assess the waste minimization techniques taken from the 4R concept (which includes reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery techniques) in minimizing the waste in construction waste management. The most used waste minimization technique found in the 4R concept would be waste reduction. This shows that the local construction industry has the knowledge necessary to plan out the waste management processes but the implementation is still far from satisfying. Additionally, the findings reveal that because the industry is profit-driven, construction practitioners are motivated by profit to adapt to this techniques.