7001ENG: Research Proposal on Waste Management in Construction

This research proposal investigates waste management practices within the construction industry, focusing on sustainable development and environmental impact. The study analyzes current waste management strategies, including recycling, reuse, and disposal methods, and assesses the impact of government legislation on waste handling. The proposal outlines a methodology involving online questionnaires and interviews with construction professionals to gather data on waste management awareness and practices. The findings reveal varying levels of understanding and implementation of waste management strategies among construction firms. The proposal suggests the adoption of reusable and recyclable materials, waste sorting, and the use of landfills and local authorities for proper waste disposal. The research aims to identify the challenges and benefits associated with the adoption of a comprehensive waste management plan in construction. The proposal also includes analysis of survey results and interviews, highlighting the awareness of different types of construction waste and the need for improved waste management practices to reduce costs, promote corporate social responsibility, and enhance worker safety.

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS FOR ENGINEERS
RESEARCH METHODS FOR ENGINEERS
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Institution Affiliation

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Project title
This proposal analyses Waste management in the construction industry. This proposal will
suggest ways in which wastes materials from the construction industries are fully managed.
Project summary
Waste management in the construction industry is a very significant parameter in
sustainable development that is geared by the higher growing concerns of the effect of activities
of human a on the environment. The management of the process of construction to recycle,
reuse, reduce and appropriately dispose of waste materials has impacts on the quality, time, final
cost and then effect on the construction of the environment. This proposal analyses the practices
of Waste management in the construction industry through the usage of structural online
Questionnaires in larger construction firms in the country. It was found from the study that
particular Government legislation on the construction´s waste materials.
Several respondents showed a poor understanding and actions for handling the waste
materials in the construction industry. This paper will thus propose the usage of reusable
materials and recyclable materials for construction to make it easier for the management of
waste. In the construction industry, there are several types of wastes therefore it would be better
if the wastes are sorted before any action is taken unto them. This proposal also suggests the use
of landfills to dispose of unwanted wastes which are not recyclable and also not reusable wastes.
For hazardous wastes, this proposal suggests the use of relevant local authority to perfectly
handle and dispose of these perilous waste. This paper also proposes the contractors to remove
these hazardous waste from the construction site.

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Keywords
Sustainable Management, Waste Management, Construction Waste, Disposal, and Government
legislation.
Introduction
Background information
In the construction industry, demolition and construction debris is generated during
rehabilitation, construction, and demolition of roads, buildings among other structures like
bridges. From the U.S. Environmental protection Agency of 2003, it was found that demolition
and construction debris amounts to about 170 million tons every year and this amount to 40 per
cent of the solid wastes in the United States (Velasco, 2014). Whilst there have been efforts to
reduce these amount of wastes through the use of recycling, reusing but there are still problems
since there are some wastes which cannot be reused or recycled therefore sorting is done first
before appropriate action is taken for such types of wastes (Kaza, 2018).
Perceptions of the causes of the production of wastes in the construction industries are
growing thus several governments put some rules to help in the reduction of poor handling of the
waste from the construction firms (Shan, 2015). Currently, there are many responses to help in
minimizing the size of waste created in the construction firm. The main strategy put is to
increase the awareness of environmental protection, this will promote the use of sustainable
materials in construction.
Responsible waste management in a very crucial activity for a sustainable building. For
this context managing waste simply means that eradicating construction waste and if possible
construction wastes can be minimized or reusing materials that might else be a waste (Luna-

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Cañas, 2014). The practices of solid waste have outlined the reusing, recycling, reduction,
sorting and use of appropriate landfills to dispose of non-reusable and non-recycled waste
materials (Lu, 2012). Such type of waste material may be categorized as hazardous waste.
Currently, most demolition and construction wastes are produced in the U.S. is legally destined
for disposal in landfills is controlled under the Code of Federal Regulation (CFR).
In most parts, all or some wastes streams from demolition and construction are illegally
deposited on land or sometimes in the water bodies (natural drainage) which is contrary to the
regulations to protect human health and the environment at large (Qiao, 2010). The growing
number of the amount of waste from the construction industry are removed from the waste
stream via the process known as the diversion (Kijjanapanich, 2014). The materials diverted are
sorted to enable recycling and also reusing in some cases. The volume of the wastes from the
construction industries is produced are highly manipulated by a macroeconomic condition
affecting the demolition and construction in the construction industry (Papargyropoulou, 2011).
Currently, construction firm awareness of waste disposal and reuse problems has been
recognized to reduce the volume of waste of demolition and construction which are disposed of
in landfills (Li, 2016). Some of the common types of wastes in the construction industries which
are needed to be managed are concrete, tiles, bricks, cement, ceramic, glass, woods, asbestos,
coal tars, bituminous mixtures, paints, stones, soils, varnishes, sealants and adhesives (Raut,
2011). Reducing or perfectly managing these wastes helps a lot as they reduce the cost, through
perfect wastes management like reusing, one will reduce the cost he would have used in buying
another material.

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Perfect waste management in the construction industry also helps in promoting corporate
social responsibility as it helps in conserving natural resources in the universe and also reduces
the energy which could have been used in transporting the wastes materials (Sen, 2010). Perfect
waste management in construction sites also helps in promoting higher standards of safety and
health of the workers and the public from being victims of the accident. When waste materials
are perfectly segregated (sorted) the chances of accidents are highly reduced (Safiuddin, 2010).
This proposal thus suggests the use of the recycling and reusing of the waste materials in the
construction as opposed to just disposing the waste materials in the landfills or the natural
drainage (Madurwar, 2013).
Aims and Objectives
Aims
This proposal aims to suggest ways of Waste management in the construction industry.
Objectives
In order to achieve the above aim of the proposal the following are the objectives which will be
employed;
 To investigate and sort out different types of waste materials in the construction industry.
 To investigate ways of disposing and managing different types of wastes after sorting
them
 To measure and establish the benefits and problems associated with the adoption of a
waste management plan in construction site.

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Methodology
This proposal is anticipated to be conducted through well-structured online
Questionnaires as well as a sample of the population for the study. The population in this context
includes the professional in the construction industry, these include the construction managers,
builders, architects, quantity surveyors, structural and mechanical engineers (Arulrajah, 2017).
These populations will be managing construction projects at a senior level in all the construction
categories of the construction industries which are fully registered with the relevant corporate
affairs. Twenty-seven (27) online Questionnaires that are fully filled will be taken to the
sustainable construction conference (Crawford, 2012). While about thirty-three (33) duly filled
online Questionnaires were submitted to the authorities handling construction projects in cities.
The online Questionnaires will be designed in a way to elicit a response that could be
easily scrutinized through the use of a closed question having suggested answers on an ordinal
scale. Moreover, the opinions of the respondents will as well be sought with appropriate open-
ended questions which view to obtain suitable recommendations on the research finding (Fujii,
2014). The acquired and filled online Questionnaires will be used to obtain info on the
knowledge of the respondent on the waste management from the construction industry,
registration and the company´s policy respondents on the waste management.
From the sixty online Questionnaires which need to be fully filled for the survey, the
survey will be conducted from about 120 large construction firms in bigger cities all over the
world where one construction firm for one online Questionnaire (Fujii, 2012). Some of the
questions which will be asked in these online Questionnaires will evaluate the knowledge of
workers on categories of construction site waste materials, how to dispose different types of

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waste materials, is the construction site use proper waste management? importance and
challenges which are associated with the proper waste management in the construction
industries.
The online Questionnaires also ask some of the ways of sorting out several categories of
waste materials from the construction firm. The case study proposed by this proposal is to adopt
the outcome of the findings once it allows the investigation of the phenomenon in the actual
context permitting assessment towards means of improving the construction sites waste
management (Wu, 2014). For an elaborate proposal methodology there are three stages of the
research proposal which is illustrated by the following diagram;
Figure 1: Showing stages of research methods (Kamala, 2012)
Apart from the online Questionnaires conducted there was also some interview which
was done randomly in the construction site. In these random interviews, about 10 construction
firms were visited and a total of 100 workers (populations) were interviewed. The interview
question was the same but the pattern of the answers given was the same.

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Dissemination of findings
From the 120 online Questionnaires which are anticipated to be administered for the
survey, sixty (60) were submitted with valid responses to the relevant authorities as seen above.
The response rate for this survey is was 50% that is half of the total online Questionnaires were
returned. It was found that 12.9 % of the returned online Questionnaires showed that they did
not pay any attention to the proper waste management at the construction site. Approximately
77.4 % fairly gave much attention to the waste management in the construction firms while just
9.7% of the respondents gave sufficient attention to the waste management in the construction.
The survey findings illustrated that a relatively higher respondents ´ percentage were
capable to ascertain the most appropriate construction waste management depiction. In column 3
in the following table 1, it is seen that 52.5% selected option four that encompassed about all
parameters of the waste management in construction. And for the level of wastes present in the
construction site, 61.3% of the total respondent on the volume of generated waste on the site
were considered moderate. About 23% of the respondents felt that it was low while about 12.9%
thought this was high. The summary of the construction waste management issues awareness are
illustrated using the following table;
Table 1: Showing summary of the construction waste management issues awareness

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From the survey, it was found that 82% of the respondents were fully aware of the types
of waste materials in the construction sectors and how these waste can be perfectly sorted and
recycles/ reused. The remaining percentage of 18% could not perfectly sort all the waste
materials from the construction site. Out of these18 % about 14% were interns who have not to
be in the construction site for a long time while 4% have been in the construction firm for a long
period of time. This shows that in most construction industries there is sufficient training about
waste management.
From the results obtained from the interview conducted among 100 interviewees in the
10 construction industries, it was found that 80% had knowledge about the type of waste
materials in the construction firm. The construction workers interviewed showed that 80
interviewees were well conversant with all types of waste materials in the construction firm
while just 20 interviewees knew the wastes materials in the construction firm but they could not
perfectly sort out the construction wastes. The 80 interviewees had knowledge of how the waste
materials from the construction can be handled (managed perfectly) while the 20 interviewees
who could not sort out the waste materials did not have an idea of waste management. From the
100 interviewees, about 90 of them had knowledge of the benefit of having a perfect waste
management practices in the construction industries. And only 10 which make 10 per cent of the
interviewees had no idea of the importance of waste management in the construction firm. This
indicates that most of the workers in the construction industry are much aware of the importance
of having proper waste management. From the results it was seen that even those individuals
who could not perfectly sort the waste in the construction industry were much aware of the
benefit of having proper waste management. Most of these workers knew that proper waste

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management helps in reducing the cost in construction and also help in reducing the pollution
which can be caused by poor waste management in the construction industry.
Estimated project timeline
The timeline for conducting the whole project is estimated to be a period of 1 year, where several
activities will be carried out. These activities are illustrated in the following table;
Table 2: Showing Estimated project timeline
No Activity Duration
1 Conducting interviewees Jan 2020– May 2020
2 Conducting online Questionnaires May 2020 – July 20202
3 Combining the results from interviewees and online questionnaire July 2020-August 2020
4 Analysis of the results August 2020– November 2020
5 Submitting the results to sustainable construction conference and
authorities handling construction projects
November 2020- Jan 2021
The information in table 2 above can be visually represented using Gantt chart as shown
in figure 2 below;

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Figure 2: Showing Gantt chart for the time line of conducting the project
The time line given in the Gantt chart were sufficient in completion of this project, this is also
feasible as a lot of time is allocated for the collecting data.

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