Engineering for Sustainable Communities: Waste Management in Infrastructure Projects

Since the enactment of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976 and its amendments, the common approach to managing wastes is to follow the waste hierarchy. The waste hierarchy starts with the most environmentally preferred waste management option, conservation (also known as waste prevention, waste minimization, or source reduction); followed by reuse, recycling, and energy recovery; and ends with the least preferred option, disposal (landfilling). Recently, the waste hierarchy has also been called resource efficiency hierarchy to emphasize that only resource consumption generates waste. While the waste hierarchy has led to major improvements in waste management, this approach cannot address all issues. For example, conservation, reuse, and recycling of some waste fractions (e.g., composites or generated hazardous materials) are difficult to implement once the waste is generated. Therefore, end-of-life considerations must be accounted for during the manufacturing phase of a component and the design phase of an infrastructure project. This is challenging because the responsible parties for the manufacturing and the end-of-life phases are often different. As another example, the use of carbon-intensive fuels must be minimized to reduce potential global warming impact. Therefore, in some cases energy recovery is preferable to material recovery, especially if material recovery is very energy intensive. While the waste hierarchy is still a valid approach, additional constraints require system thinking to minimize the overall environmental, economic, and social impacts when managing waste in infrastructure projects. This paper will discuss construction and demolition waste quantities and composition in infrastructure projects, regulatory requirements, conservation, reuse and recycling opportunities and end with the presentation of case studies.

Krogmann, U., Liban, C.B., Puppala, A.J. and Reddy, K.R: Waste Management: Conservation, Reuse and Recycling of Materials and Components. In: Engineering for Sustainable Communities: Principles and Practices, Kelly, W., Luke, B., Wright, R., ASCE, Reston, Va., 2017, pp. 223-236.