Mapping approach for examining waste management on construction sites

The increasing awareness of environmental impacts from construction wastes has led to the development of waste management as an important function of construction project management. Various approaches for managing construction wastes have been developed in the existing research works and practices, and these works can be grouped largely into three areas: waste classification, waste management strategies (avoiding waste, reducing waste, reusing waste and recycling waste), and waste disposal technologies. Nevertheless these approaches give less attention to the management of waste handling process during construction. Form their generation to final disposal, construction wastes will pass through a number of processes where various measures will be used to handle with wastes. It is considered that proper flow of these handling processes can improve overall waste management effectiveness. This paper extends the existing research studies to examining the process of waste management during construction on site by using mapping presentations. This examination is undertaken through analyzing six cases selected in Hong Kong construction. The examination leads to developing a waste management flow model (WMFM), which is designated to incorporate the good operations embodied in the existing practice and function as a standard model of waste management procedures. The model has been tested in two projects. 1 Associate Professor, Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2 Research Student, Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong 2 The model can provide an alternative tool assisting in planning waste management procedures on site. It also serves as a vehicle to compare the waste management practices between construction sites, thus both good practices and weak areas in managing wastes can be found.