Waste management in construction industry: a review on the issues and challenges

Abstract

Under the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), the element of sustainability has been regarded as one of the key components for enhancing the quality of life for Malaysian citizens by its inclusion into the Strategic Thrust 5: Building an Environment that Enhances Quality of Life. In achieving this thrust, RM63 billion had been allocated to improve the infrastructure in Malaysia and 78,000 affordable houses had been targeted to be built by 2015 to cater the housing needs of Malaysian people. However, due to rapid economic development, the waste generation has increased and thus becomes a burden to landfills, which is the common way of waste disposal in Malaysia. In view of managing wastes effectively, a comprehensive guideline is needed to assist construction actors in seriously looking at and adopting a more sustainable waste management mechanism. This paper was aimed at critically reviewing the issues and challenges that are faced by the construction actors when developing a comprehensive construction waste management (CWM). The issues surrounding the generation of construction wastes need to be identified in order to create an awareness among the construction actors about the importance of construction waste management and the challenges in developing construction waste management. Carefully selected papers were critically reviewed to identify the issues and challenges that were relevant to the waste management in the construction industry. In our review, a lot of issues had been identified whereby the amount of waste generated was the pressing issue due to the limited landfills in Malaysia. Furthermore, we also found that the main challenge in developing a construction waste management was the managing organizations involved (e.g. contractors), which were not giving high priority to proper waste management. Thus, this paper will provide a good basis in developing a construction waste management and strategy which will significantly help the minimization of environment impacts and indirectly enhance the socio-economic benefits within Malaysia.