Construction Waste Management

     One of the most important aspects of sustainability is the management of waste. Waste management is threefold including reduction of waste, recycling and the reuse of materials. Each year millions of tons of construction waste is sent to landfills or illegally dumped on land! Remember when our parents would tell us to eat our food because there were kids in Africa starving? I never quite got why they used that particular analogy, but its principle goes to the heart of being wasteful. We should properly use everything our disposal, not dispose of it. 

                   

     Eliminating waste seems like a daunting task but really it is within our reach. We first must realize that we can do it and then plan carefully. Caution: this may include using your brain and even your money! We eliminate waste when we build durable, quality products that last long and are not easily disposed of. The longer a product is used and maintained, the less waste that happens. As project managers, we are learning that planning and estimating correctly can play a huge role in the elimination. I remember in Comprehensive Estimating, having to constantly factor in 5-10% waste. Why is that? More care, accurate planning helps dramatically reduce those questions of waste. BIM modeling is just one of the many tools that can help a project manager at the front end of a project. The computer calculates all of the quantities accurately and can even give an accurate estimation of a schedule that could reduce how much and how long we are incurring waste. But the computer doesn’t build the model itself so being painstaking and focused helps for more accurate results which means that orders for quantities of materials can go out with less variance and disposal of the left overs. 
             

   The way the building is designed in the first place also has a lot to do with adding to the waste. If the dimensions of the building of the building take into consideration the sizes that the material suppliers produce instead of making other dimensions that require for materials to cut and unable to be used, therefore wasted. Not only that, but designing for dis-assembly and reuse means that systems come together in such a way that the building can be dismantled without destroying the use of its members. This requires some real patience and thought on the part of the architect to design assemblages and joinery that make these things possible instead of slapping everything together with glue. The Loblolly House by Keiran Timberlake is a great example of this concept of attention to details of assemblage.

              

    This leads to the next aspect of waste management, reuse. Once a building is dismantled, it does not all have to go to a dumpster. Finding people who could use the leftovers for other purposes is a great way to make sure everything is being put to good use and not put in a dumpster. Reuse goes beyond reuse of materials, but also the use of old buildings. Why does every business have to have a new one. Professor Sullivan has been known to say that the greenest building is the one we DON’T build. It’s so true!