Construction waste

Goal: try and find as much information as you can on the waste flows of the 11 construction materials and add those to the sublayers of 3.5 Waste flows with the usual upload and tagging procedure.

As you know, waste occurs along the supply chain in the various lifecycle stages:

  • Extraction
  • Manufacturing
  • Wholesale + retail, import and export
  • Transport
  • Use/consumption: construction companies, households

Therefore, try to find data from all these stages.

Tip 1: Start with use and consumption, as it is generally easiest to find data here.

Tip 2: We can also advise to split up your search into waste collection and waste treatment, because often there are different data sources and even values, meaning just because something is collected locally, it doesn’t mean it is treated locally or at all.

Waste collection

(1) waste collection system overview

For this task, it helps to have a good idea on what the waste collection system is like in your city. We recommend to try and make an overview of that by answering the following questions:

  • Does the city itself collect waste?
  • Are there private haulers?
  • Does the city have to issue licences to them?
  • Who runs the waste depots and recycling drop-off centres?
  • What needs to be separated?

Write this down somewhere and you can later on include it in your SCA report.

(2) collected waste amounts

Try to find the quantities/amounts of the 11 construction materials that are collected, both separately, as well as with other materials. E.g. it could be that on a construction site the materials are all mixed in one container, but that the quantities of the single materials are estimated (e.g. 50% wood, 20% aluminium, 30% glass). Construction companies often have these amounts, because they need to pay for the disposal and are charged depending on this composition.

Reminder: Please keep in mind that we look for ALL waste collected: collected by the city, but also from private companies.

(3) Number of renovations and demolitions

Try to find the (1) number of renovations and (2) number of demolitions to better estimate the amounts of waste that occur. Together with the information on the material stock composition and the typologies of buildings, this will enable you to calculate/estimate the amounts that “come out of the system” = made available for waste collection, if you cannot find the values themselves.

Waste treatment

As for waste treatment, try to determine what happens with the amounts.

  • How much is being composted, incinerated, recycled (incl. reused, remanufactured, refurbished etc.), landfilled?
  • Does the waste treatment happen locally or is exported?

Outline of the video

  • Looking at waste in two phases: collection and treatment
  • Closer look at waste from use phase and stock
  • Waste during construction, cutoffs, broken stuff, (incl. packaging)
  • Demolition waste + Renovation waste
    • bigger shares and they come out from the stock to then be collected
    • demolition is generally done by professionals
    • renovation: smaller ones can be done by individuals and households, who will bring their rubble to drop-off points, which are usually managed by public agencies. In case of private companies, they usually have their own paths for waste disposal.
    • Sorting bins sometimes are there to collect a single material (mono stream) or they are mixed
  • M2:44, waste treatment: different types depending on the material. Many materials will be crushed and then used as road cover. There is a bit of reuse and some recycling.
  • You will know the material composition from the stock analysis of the previous module.
  • 2 more important pieces of information: (1) number of renovations. (2) number of demolitions to better estimate the amounts of waste
  • M5:22, Examples