Minimising construction and demolition waste using circular economy concept to achieve sustainable urban development

Abstract

Urban development significantly increased construction activities, which led to the generation of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) and inefficient resource exploitation. Most of these CDWs end up in landfills, and most countries give little attention to sustainable practices in this area. "Circular Economy" (CE) is one of the best ways to reduce CDW and the use of resources. Even though CE is not a new idea, it is not fully used to reduce CDW because the construction industry is still based on a linear economy and building materials are designed to be used linearly. Hence, this paper aims to investigate how CE can contribute to minimising the CDW to achieve sustainable urban development. This study adopts a qualitative approach to examine the strategies used to minimise the CDW in Sri Lanka. Multiple holistic case studies with three large-scale construction projects in the Colombo district were selected, and semi-structured interviews were used to get first-hand information. Manual content analysis was used for data analysis. Findings noted that disposal is unavoidable for all 14 CDW types, and e-waste was counted as the 15th type. The 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) of CE are quite popular among the projects, and the other 8Rs of Cimen (2021) of the CE concept are challenging to put into practice. To increase the knowledge and application of CE principles among built environment experts, this research provides recommendations based on a desk study by gathering case studies from secondary sources where CE principles are extensively applied for CDW minimisation