Construction waste management practices on-sites: A case study of Istanbul city

Abstract

Increasing construction activities put enormous stress on waste generation in Turkey. Therefore, to manage all these construction wastes by setting effective waste management strategies becomes more significant day by day. Although there is a rising interest in waste management issues, there are not enough studies in Turkey. The lack of data is a prominent obstacle for the researchers. Addressing this research gap, an explanatory multiple-case study was conducted to reveal the waste management practices (waste generation, collection-sorting, storage-disposal, and recovery) on-sites. Unstructured interviews were conducted with different 13 experts working at different construction sites in Istanbul. According to the qualitative study results, there is usually no waste management plan on-sites. Project revisions and cutting of materials for sizing, storage problems are the most emphasized causes of waste on-sites. Wastes are mostly collected and disposed of by the contractors and there is a tendency to collect wastes in mixed on-site and later partly sort. Collection-sorting and storage-disposal practices on-sites are affected by the quantity of waste, site facilities, storage opportunities, scale of the contractor and economic value of waste. The recovery facilities are mostly depending on the economic gain to be obtained from waste. In this context, the recycling and reusing of steel waste is given the best importance. There are not enough networks for recovery of cardboard/paper-plastic wastes on-sites. There is no illegal dumping among the cases included in this study. However, awareness on special treatment of hazardous wastes has not yet been developed enough on-sites in Turkey.

Significant guidance for the effective management of construction waste in North Africa and the Middle East countries

“…The current status of construction waste in Russia was studied and mentioned that the effective management of waste is the result of integration among local, regional and federal authorities with construction organizations [32] . Waste management practices in Turkey were studied through multiple case studies and found that design changes, storage problems and irregular cutting of materials are the main problems of waste generation, the study revealed that there is no specific waste plan applied on site and steel waste is the most important waste retrieved through recycling and reusing [33] .…”

Assessment of Yalova University Campus according to LEED V.4 certification system

“…There are various effects of the production and consumption of the structural materials on the global and local environment. There might be some harms imposed on the environment during the extraction, processing, production, and transportation of the materials [30,31]. One of the underlying credits on the basis of LEED 24 certification system is re-using of the materials.…”