Recycling Material and Waste Management in Building Renovation and Demolition

Recycling Material and Waste Management in Building Renovation and Demolition
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Recycling Material and Waste Management in Building Renovation and Demolition
Waste management is becoming a primary challenge in contemporary society where construction and demolition prospects continue. With every passing day comes the challenge of disposing or recycling the wastes properly. While waste management and recycling have been a topic of discussion for long, it remains inconclusive and more innovations must be trained towards the prospects. Presently, the focus must be put on utilizing the available resources to deliver the ultimate waste management outcomes. Primary among the areas of emphasis is the strategic decision on whether to renovate or demolish structures, focusing on recycling and other waste management strategies. Upon making the decision on the most appropriate waste management platform, stakeholders must reiterate the application of new technologies to deliver the most cost-effective, fast, and efficient waste management tools and protocols. The progress is continuing even though areas of need must be highlighted for faster and better progress. This paper assesses recycling material and waste management in building renovation and demolition. An insightful approach to waste management and recycling in building renovation and demolition helps with proper developments in key aspects that include exploration of the more sustainable decisions between building and demolition, technological developments to consider while advancing waste management prospects, efficient waste removal sequences, and analysis of waste recycling mechanisms.
Literature Review
Sustainability Variations between Renovation and Demolition
Individuals with stakes in the building industry understand the scope of challenges they face while making decisions between demolishing or renovating buildings. Before settling on whether a building should be demolished or renovated, individuals are tasked to understand the scope of challenges that they may face. For instance, safety issues, the costs of raw materials, the long-term energy efficiency, waste management protocols, and the number of changes that either decision can trigger on design are worth considering before deciding whether to demolish or renovate a building (Hasmori et al., 2020).  Few would cherish getting rid of solid-core doors, marble window sills, crown molding, pocket doors, and arched doorways. Some older homes are constructed with higher-quality timber and feature finishing details that are difficult to duplicate today. Besides the obvious challenge of finding the ideal replacements, it becomes very challenging for individuals to recycle some of the materials during reconstruction efficiently. That makes it easy to renovate with materials that can be recycled positioned for the same.
Recycling is one of the factors that individuals must consider while debating between renovation and demolition. As one demolishes a building, some materials cannot be recycled. One such material is wallpaper (Aboginije, Aigbavboa, & Thwala, 2021). Oftentimes, individuals use wallpaper within homes, taking them off during demolition. A wallpaper that has been contaminated can be challenging to restore as there is no proper process to execute such a restoration. The same applies to other materials such as used broken glass, old paint cans, older tools, and some plastics. Renovating some of such products eases the costs directed in the application besides creating employment. The most significant advantage of reusing materials is the reduction in resource and energy consumption that occurs due to minimizing the manufacture of new materials. As opposed to demolition that destroys most of the debris from a building, renovation tends to foster salvage of the materials. Easy-to-remove materials such as fixtures, appliances, hardware, and doors can be isolated during renovation before they are subjected to recycling. Additionally, the renovation also allows materials that are not reusable in the building process to be directed to other uses. For instance, wood cut-offs can be directed to the development of lintels or blocking to limit the necessity to cut full-length lumbers. Also, in moderate quantities, crushed or de-prepared gypsum can be directed to soil amendment, while masonry, brick, and concrete materials can be recycled on-site. Put simply, renovation eases the recycling of materials as opposed to demolitions.
The prevalent national data on demolition implies why more emphasis should be put on the renovation as far as recycling of materials is concerned. In 2018, at least 600 million tons of C&D debris were produced in the US (Arumugam, Muhamad, & Yahya, 2019). The number was more than twice the amount produced through municipal solid waste avenues. In that period, demolition represented more than 90 percent of the solid C&D wastes. Renovation only contributed to 10 percent of the waste. Even more challenging are the efforts that have been put in to address the C&D debris. In 2018, just under 145 million tons of debris were directed to next use and recycling while the other 455 million tons were directed to landfills. Aggregate was the primary next-use platform for C&D debris. EPA conducted separate investigations on the development of C&D materials before including them in the Advancing SMM Report. In 1996, the EPA projected that 136 million tons of construction and demolition materials were created in the United States. By 2003, almost 170 million tons of construction and demolition materials had been produced. Non-residential sources accounted for 61% of the total in 2003 (Arumugam, Muhamad, & Yahya, 2019). Non-residential demolition was the most significant source of C&D materials, followed by residential renovation.
With such an insightful understanding of the challenges posed by either renovation or demolition, it becomes necessary that efforts are put to encourage renovation in cases where demolition can be deemed unnecessary (Hittini & Shibeika, 2019). The Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2018 Fact Sheet, a waste characterization report from the Environmental Protection Agency, approximates C&D material generation and the mass quantities of created materials that were directed to next use or sent to landfills in the United States. Asphalt concrete, steel, asphalt shingles, brick and clay tile, wood goods, drywall, and plaster, are among the C&D materials covered in the report. The C&D material amounts from construction, renovation, and demolition activities for bridges, roads, buildings, and other structures are represented in the generation estimates (Hasmori et al., 2020). "Next use" refers to a C&D material's intended next-use market, which can include soil amendment, compost, mulch, fuel, manufactured items, or aggregate, depending on the substance.
Source reduction reduces the amount of material used, the amount of energy used, and the amount of waste generated during the course of a person's life. When it comes to solid waste issues, the EPA considers it to be the most important (Hittini & Shibeika, 2019). While reuse and recycling are key ways for managing waste in a sustainable manner once it has been generated, source reduction avoids garbage from being produced in the first place. Preserving existing buildings rather than building new ones; optimizing the size of new buildings; using alternative framing techniques; designing new buildings for adaptability to extend their useful lives; using construction methods that allow disassembly and facilitate reuse of materials; reducing interior finishes; and more are examples of C&D source reduction measures (Larissa & Magrini, 2017). C&D source reduction activities include purchase agreements that prevent extra materials in addition to improving the design of structures, building systems, and materials. Considerations towards waste management must be completed while employing either renovation or demolition.
Stakeholders in waste management are fast adopting deconstruction bearing the burden of waste materials that demolitions trigger. Deconstruction implies a careful demolition of buildings with the objective of salvaging components optimally for recycling or reuse (Larissa & Magrini, 2017). Deconstruction can be applicable both in renovation and demolition, even though the emphasis is put on demolition. While deconstructing, the stakeholders can seek benefits, including preservation of resources through reuse, diverting demolition debris bound for disposal, and reprocessing salvaged materials. Remarkably, even though deconstruction eases material development for recycling and reuse, care must be taken in structuring the eventual applications. That is, materials set for recycling are sometimes mismanaged or badly managed. It is important to ask the recycler a few questions, such as whether they are in compliance with state and local legislation, state license or registration, and/or third-party certification, or how efficiently their recycling processes are conducted (Mohammed et al., 2020). Such inquiries will help guarantee that your materials are handled properly and in accordance with your specifications. Overall, both renovation and demolition bear drawbacks and benefits as far as reuse and recycling are concerned. However, considering the fact that demolitions produce the highest amount of C&D debris that is barely reused or recycled, renovation remains a viable option. In cases where individuals must demolish their buildings, it is necessary that they deconstruct the structures to salvage the highest quantities of materials viable for reuse or recycling.
Technological Advancements in Recycling
Literature has also delved into exploring the emerging technologies in recycling within building and construction. Often, technological advancements help in more effective and advanced recycling with efficient use of energy for maximum outcomes (Aboginije, Aigbavboa, & Thwala, 2021). However, technologies merit differently, with some technologies more efficient in particular cases as opposed to others. It is also worth remarking that the technology industry is highly dynamic, with new innovations emerging consistently.
Only a few technologies are covered presently in literature to steer recycling in building and construction. Radio frequency identification (RFID) is among the technologies that are advancing inputs in material recycling within construction (Larissa & Magrini, 2017). An RFID uses electromagnetic fields to identify and track tags attached to objects automatically. With easy identification of materials, individuals can classify and track the movements of both reusable and recyclable materials from demolitions and renovations. RFID has traditionally been used to track recyclable garbage. The construction industry is delving intointo the use of RFID for its efficient calculations and assessment of the recycling scopes (Votyakova, 2018). RFID t...