Construction Waste – Potentials and Constraints

The construction industry is a major generator of wastes and other seemingly unusable materials that can easily be discarded as solid waste. Basically, contractors are responsible for maintaining a sanitary work environment and to dispose of their waste from their working area. Since the presence of the contractors is contingent to the construction period, the primary method of getting rid of the construction waste is to haul them away from the work sites, without much regard to the long term repercussion of their actions. As the focus of compliance in most construction sites is on the maintenance of sanitary surroundings, the management methods for waste which considers reuse, recycling and resource recovery are not clearly followed through. With this prevailing conduct of business, the construction industry misses its mark in contributing to correct waste management. Materials, be it excess from construction process, or residual from demolition, can still be usable should the contractor exert efforts in finding ways to use them rather than dispose them. At worst, when not fully checked by the supervising engineer, these materials end up dumped in the surroundings, which can potentially cause contamination to the environment. This paper presents the issues of construction wastes encountered by the author in projects that he worked on, with some suggestions on how these materials easily regarded as waste can be reused. In addition, the author also presents some issues that lead to lax implementation and enforcement of proper waste management in the work sites. Finally, recommendations are presented that the construction industry can espouse in order to improve the compliance of the construction industry to an ecological solid waste management.