Material wastage in construction activities – a Hong Kong survey

Abstract

Construction wastes have become the major source of solid wastes in Hong Kong where construction and demolition activities generate thousands of tonnes of solid wastes every year. The increasing generation of construction wastes has caused significant impacts to the environment and aroused growing public concern in the local community. Thus the minimization of construction wastes has become a pressing issue. This paper investigates the profile of waste generation from applying different types of building materials to different types of construction projects. It is considered that the application of various building materials to different types of projects has different impacts to the size of waste generation. Therefore the paper attempts to identify the relations between waste generation and the application of building materials to different types of projects. Following this identification, proper methods are proposed to mitigate the generation of wastes by adopting proper construction and management methods, which allow the waste reduction from using building materials. Data from the construction industry of Hong Kong are used for the analysis.