Economic And Environmental Impact Assessment Of Construction And Demolition Waste Recycling And Reuse Using LCA And MCDA Management Tools

Reuse and recycling of waste from construction and demolition (C&D) is problematic
because the markets for secondary materials have not yet been fully integrated. Decisions
regarding the reuse and recycling of building waste materials, however, are beneficial
economically to the construction industry, in addition to having environmental and social
responsibility outcomes. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the economic and environmental
benefits of recycling and reuse of C&D waste. It explores how impact categories such as
economic and environmental impact can be used to develop a decision-support framework for
recycling and reusing building waste. Two case studies of real-life Demolition and New
Build projects are selected to demonstrate how waste inventory data can be collected and
adopted to support the decision-making process.
A thorough review of the available literature revealed a holistic view of C&D waste
management and its related economic and environmental impacts. The literature review
helped establish a direction for what is needed to develop a decision-support framework. Two
management tools (LCA and MCDA) were identified as possible tools needed to complete
the decision-support framework. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Analytic Hierarchical
Process (AHP) (an aspect of MCDA) were adopted to construct the framework, which was to
be applied to the case study’s waste management system. The combination of these two
management tools enables the full development of a framework that can measure both the
economic and environmental impact of the current waste management system, as well as act
as a tool for supporting decisions regarding different policy alternatives.
Thus, the framework was applied to the Demolition and New Build case studies, and
later validated for consistency. The framework delivered a set of positive results that could be
useful for those making decisions on policy alternatives. Both the decision making process
and waste management policy were selected and facilitated by the new framework. Decision
makers' preferences on policy alternatives were ranked as final outcomes, and favoured
reducing, recycling and reusing opportunities in C&D waste management. The result depicts
an approach that, compared to current waste management practices, demonstrates a strong
acceptability in terms of the environment and cost-effectiveness. Thus, the key findings
discussed here provide an interesting foundation for future research, which will focus more
on other impacts, such as the social and policy impacts of recycling and reusing C&D waste.