On-site construction waste management: activity based waste generation

Abstract

Sustainability of a construction project is often considered as a very important parameter in evaluating the success of the project. Though the management of material waste that generated as a result of onsite construction activities were initially regarded as less important to the overall sustainability of the project, current trends proves it otherwise. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is one of those driving-forces that make the construction waste management an important sustainability indicator of a construction project. As a result of LEED as well as other assessment tools, construction waste management is very common in practice. However the effectiveness of the current management practices is questionable because prediction of waste material quantities is often neglected during the process. Therefore, to accomplish effective construction waste management (minimization, recycling, reuse, etc.) it is essential to predict quantities of construction waste which essentially depends on identifying the sources of waste generation and their relationships to quantity of waste. This paper presents the findings of a current research work on prediction of construction waste based on activity based construction waste generation method. The proposed activity-based construction waste generation modeling facilitates material waste predictions using several parameters including activity specific factors, environmental factors, worker related factors, etc. Statistical model that Predicts the drywall waste generation was presented in this paper. The study was based on the work carried out at several building construction sites in Calgary, Alberta. The findings can be incorporated into a planning tool which can essentially be used for the construction waste management process at sites.