Construction and Demolition Waste Management in India

School of Architecture and Built Environment (SABE)
The University of Adelaide
Designing Research
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1 Project Title: Construction and Demolition of Waste Management in India
2 Project Summary/Abstract
The main agenda of this research work is to investigate key challenges faced by the
private sector and government agencies in context to C and D waste management.
The demand for this research work is to investigate key problems faced by the
waste management agencies in India in order to tackle them successfully for
successful C&D waste reduction. Face to face structured interviews and telephone
survey methods can be used for asking consequential questions regarding C and D
waste management to both public and private C and D waste management agencies.
The expected outcome of the project is to reduce C&D waste in India to some extent
with the implementation of the proposed model.
3 Project Outline
3.1 Introductory Background
The construction industry in India has been growing at a rapid rate as Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) from the construction industry maximized to 2754.48
billion from 2254.22 within 2016-2019. The growth in population,
industrialization, and urbanization are key factors which increase the demand
for construction in India which led to rapid increase in volume of waste which
raises environmental issues such as illegal dumping of C and D waste in into
rivers and hill slopes, shortage of landfills, resource depletion, destruction of
the natural environment, scarcity of dumping yards, etc. The construction
activities such as bridges, building, flyover, roads, remodelling, etc. have a
massive indirect/direct impact on the environment. Moreover, the management
of C and D (construction and Demolition) has not practiced appropriate and
strategically in India. In the current scenario, Land sharks have been used
C&D waste to fill up wetlands and water bodies around urban centers in an
illegal manner for real estate development. The remaining waste has been
dumped into open spaces or rivers. Moreover, C&D waste causes more traffic
congestion and air pollution as compared to municipal solid waste. Dumping
C&D in lakes is a common practice in large states which leads to loss of
wetland. An Indian construction industry has created 10-12 million tons of C
and D waste (construction and demolition waste) yearly. Mumbai, Chennai,
Delhi, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Patna, Jaipur, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Bhopal

are main Indian cities which produces a high volume of demolition and
construction waste. Presently, there are various government and private
construction and demolition waste management agencies/organization which
are trying to manage C&D waste effectively in India, but they do not succeed in
their mission due to use of improper C and D waste management strategies.
This study is going to propose an effective construction and development
management practice which can be implemented by both private and
government waste management agencies in India.
3.2 Research Questions
This research work aims to address the problems associated with the
management of C and D waste India in terms of the following three research
questions:
Q1: What are the key challenges faced by private and government agencies in
context to construction and demolition waste management?
Q2: What type of construction and demolition management model can be used
by private and government construction and demolition waste management
agencies to reduce or eliminate the adverse impacts of C&D waste on the
environment?
Q3: What are the main components of the proposed construction and
demolition waste management strategy?
3.3 Aims/Objectives of the Project
Presently, India produces a large volume of construction and demolition waste
and it has been expected that the volume will be growing in the future because
there is no effective and reliable C&D waste management strategy. The main
objective of this project is to investigate critical challenges encountered by
construction and demolition waste management private and government
agencies due to their ineffective waste management procedures. The specific
strategic objective of this research project is to reduce existing environmental
issues associated with inappropriate and ineffective management of
construction and demolition waste by proposing a suitable C&D waste
management model (Yuan and Shen 2011). The proposed model will also
focus on the utilization of recycled construction products as it will reduce the
cost of material expenses and waste management. Moreover, the proposed
model will contribute to the improvement of C&D waste recycling initiatives
taken by private and government agencies. In order to answer the research
questions, the researcher will focus on the C&D waste generation practices
implemented by major Indian cities such as Delhi and Hyderabad in context to
new C&D waste management rules. However, the overall research objective of
this research is to suggest an effective C&D waste management
model/strategy to Indian cities that will reduce existing environmental problems
to some extent.
3.4 Significance/Contribution to the discipline

In recent years, the disposal of waste created from construction and
demolition activities becomes a major issue in India because C&D
waste management agencies do not work appropriately (Yadav 2018).
Shortage of land is the biggest problem encountered by waste
management agencies as the demand for land is increasing with time
due to rapid growth in industrialization and population. Presently, a
large volume of demolition and construction waste has been produced
by land sharks for filling wetlands as well as water bodies in an illegal
way. Yadav (2018) has given a definite direction to the Indian
government for framing of regulatory mechanisms and policy
initiatives in an effective way. Jain, Singhal, and Jain (2018) estimate
the generation of C and D waste from residential area, buildings in
urban area and rural building sectors in India. The key findings of their
study showed that India has produced between 112-431M tonnes of
C&D waste in 2016 due high demand of construction. It has been
found that per capita waste generation in an urban area is high as
compared to a rural area. Approximately 2 to 8% of the natural
minerals like aggregates, sand, etc. can be saved in urban areas through
C&D recycling. Mumbai, Patna, Coimbatore, Bhopal, Ahmedabad,
Jaipur, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai are main
cities in India which highly contributes to the construction and
demolition waste generation. Delhi is the capital of India which
produces 5000 tonnes of C and D waste daily and1.8 million tonnes of
C&D waste annually basis. It has been reported that India has
produced nearly 10-12 tonnes of waste from demolition and
construction activities annually. (Bovea and Powell 2016) showed that
waste management practices in India are inefficient and inadequate
which leads to C&D waste end up by dumping into rivers,
unauthorized placed and landfills.
(Tiwari and Magar 2018) studied various methods which can be used at
the construction sites for waste reduction generated from construction
tasks. The findings of conducted research showed that improper use of
labor and waste management methods are root causes of the production
of waste (especially Construction as well as demolition waste in India.
The main C&D waste generation streams includes plaster, glass,
plastic, excavated materials, brick, tiles, asphalt concrete, metal, steel,
concrete rubbles, electrical wiring, glass, fill materials, carpeting,
drywall, land clearing debris other than yard waste, wood, non-asbestos
insulation, wall covering (tile, panelling and wallpapers), carpeting etc.
(Gayakwad and Sasane 2015). The key findings of the study conducted
by (Tiwari and Magar 2018) showed that Indian government
authorities need to strengthen the laws and policies enforced for the
management of waste generated from construction in India. Moreover,
the sustainability of construction can be increased by recycling of
demolition & construction material. It has been estimated that Chennai
produces approximately 1.14 million tonnes of C&D debris in 2013.