The Scope Of Study And Limitation Construction Essay

The topic for this dissertation is a study on the construction wastes minimization in Malaysia Construction Industry. Nowadays, construction and demolition waste that produced in the site is increasing and becoming larger portion of the waste disposed in Malaysia landfill. This research is selected and carried out mainly due to the waste materials from site have been largely generated and most of the Construction Industries in Malaysia have not been practising by using 4Rs Concept to minimize the waste on site.

This is might cause serious impact to the environment. The construction waste has generated a significant amount of waste to the earth that causes major impact on the global. Therefore, solutions have to be implemented to minimizing the construction waste to reduce the impact of the environment.

Rising disposal costs and reduction in number of landfills create a need to search for alternatives to reduce, reuse, recycle and replace of construction waste being generated. Under this assertion, implementation of construction waste management can be one of the apparent solutions for the industry to minimize waste and waste disposal, ultimately reducing costs incurred during the process and contributing to the global “Environmental-friendly” movement (Bon-Gang Hwang, 2010). The construction waste will increase from time to time in during the development of very large projects especially located in Town area. Thus, the necessity of finding appropriate solution to reduce the potential of construction waste been generated.

Nowadays the waste management is not an option anymore but necessary. It must be seriously concerns and implement a useful tool to minimize the construction waste on site. Therefore, Reused and Recycle has been known as one of the best solution to recycle the waste materials into recycled contents and turn into usable materials. Sadly though, our national domestic recycling rate still excurse around a mere five percent (Bernama, 2006). Currently in Malaysia, it is still not much of the construction industry practice of 4Rs Concept. Thus, implementing of 4Rs Concept is one of the methods to solve the material waste to minimize the waste.

According to Yusoff (2010) has apparently stated that wastages affect not only to the environment but also incur extra costs. In Malaysia, there is a huge potential in reuse and recycle of construction waste into alternative materials that is usable in Malaysian Construction industry if implement correctly. This will hopefully bring about construction resurgence (Yusoff, 2010). In many of the developed countries have started to implement reuse and recycle of the construction materials aggressively.

The construction wastes affect not only the environment but also incurred extra cost has been spent on the new material. This is mainly due to maybe the un-used material on site has been damaged and additional cost need to reorder the material. Therefore, there is a need of implementing a good material storage to avoid damaging the material. Other than that, the method of reuse and recycle of waste has been largely used on other developed counties. This means that there are has the huge potential in reuse and recycle of waste material on site in Malaysia. Thurs, implementing 4Rs Concept to reduce the extra cost incur on the unnecessary materials and also reuse and recycle of construction waste in the Malaysian construction industry. This will hopefully minimize the construction waste from being largely generated on site.

Problem Statement

It is obviously that most of the construction industries may produce or generate a tremendous amount of debris and also solid waste from sites. These debris and solid waste will leave onto the sites for decades or just dump into the sea that may cause to water pollution not just to our country but also damaging the world. In order to allow construction waste to be minimized, it is either by managing the material properly such as provide a good housekeeping, provide proper material storage and so on or using 4Rs Concept such as reduce, reuse, recycle and replace of material waste on site.

Most of the constructions industries generate lots of debris that can be totally cease because in every construction industry during activities in on going, there will be waste occurred no matter what method used to prevent it. It is depend on how the project management reduce the waste to the minimal.

In Malaysia, majority of the construction industry do not take advantages or practise of using reuse and recycle method and at the end the material abandon on the construction site. Consequently, this will cause increasing of burden on landfill loading and operation on site. Thurs, it is time for Malaysia to start to manage the material properly and also practise using recycle and reused to minimize the material waste on site. Therefore, it is advisable to all construction industries in Malaysia should start to practise 4Rs Concepts in order to minimize the construction waste.

Research Goals

Project Aim

The aim of this dissertation is mainly to carry out study regarding to minimize the construction waste in the construction industry. The Malaysian construction industry should implement several methods to minimize the construction waste material such as provide proper management for the material, reuse and recycle method and so on. Therefore, all the solution should be implementing in all construction industry in order to achieve the aims of this study.

Objectives of Project

To identify the types of waste that can be used to reuse or recycle in construction industry.

To analyse the benefits of construction waste minimization in construction industry.

To give out recommendation on how to overcome the construction waste problem in construction industry.

Key Questions

What are the types of waste that can be used to reuse and recycle in construction industry?

What benefits can the construction waste minimization contribute to the construction industry?

Which types of method can be implemented to overcome the construction waste problem in construction industry?

Background of Study

Nowadays many constructions industries around the world have produced a tremendous amount of waste into this world. Many of the waste produced from the constructions site has been dump on all over the places and it will increase from time to time relatively with development of rural and urban areas if construction industries did not managed them properly. Therefore, construction waste management plays an important role to minimize or control the amount of waste that produce from the construction site.

The Malaysian construction industry has now mainly concerns regarding to the amount of construction waste generated in Malaysia. In many of the developed countries have been using reuse and recycle of construction waste. Therefore, reuse and recycle have been recognised as one of the most workable strategy to control and minimize the waste on site. In most of projects, more than half of the construction wastes are recyclable materials.

There are several authors have been highlighted strategies for waste minimization. One of the strategies that find repeated mention in the literature is the strategy referred to as 3Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle. (Shekdar, 2008; Wang et al., 2008; Kibert and Languell, 2000;Teo and Loosemore, 2001). Therefore, there is a good opportunity to implementing 4Rs concept rather than 3Rs. This is mainly due to the 4Rs Concept is a better and workable strategy that can be used to control and minimize the construction waste.

Scope of Study and Limitation

This research is mainly focusing on the construction wastes minimization in Malaysian construction industry. In this research, a case study of construction wastes minimization in Malaysian construction industry which mainly focusing on cities or town area such as Kuala Lumpur.

Firstly, this research is carry out to ensure whether that the practise of reuse and recycle waste has been implemented in Malaysian construction industries. Besides that, to investigate the current trend of the waste management in Malaysian construction industry in order to find out the waste minimization method that provides smooth flow of process.

Secondly, this research is carrying out by questionnaires to the relevant respondents that have the skills and knowledge regarding to the research topic. Not all respondents has the knowledge that can contribute to the research topic due to not many respondents had the experience and knowledge regarding to the construction waste minimization.

The targets of the respondents are mainly focus on who have the experiences and knowledge regarding to the construction waste minimization in Kuala Lumpur such as contractors, specialists, professionals, project manager, etc.

Contribution of the study

First of all, this research is carried out due to various reasons. The main reason of this research is to reduce the cost of construction material and disposal. Due to this reason less waste will be generated means that a reduced quantity of materials will be purchased and less waste taken to landfill will reduce gate fees for disposal as well. This will improved recovery practices and motivate a sustained change in waste management practise in future. In order to reduce the cost of construction material, reused and recycled construction waste is the best solution to dispose the waste materials in the construction industry.

Secondly, reused and recycled is an economically viable option. Using reused and recycled, the waste materials on site will not be dumped indiscriminately and sent to incinerators of burnt on-site or sent to landfill sites. Contractors could just send the materials to recycling centres. From recycling of construction wastes, contractors could recoup their losses and make a healthy profit out of it. This method is already been used in the United States.

In Malaysia, reused and recycled is still not commonly practise. Therefore, there is much potential to contribute on the market for recycled construction wastes. Therefore, our country not just cut down the landfill sites but also cut down a lot of expenses on construction material to construction industry.

The construction industry produces substantial amount of waste, which is about four times of that produced in households thereby accounting for more than 50 per cent of the waste deposited in a typical landfill (Ferguson et al., 1995; Coventry and Guthrie, 1998). This means the rising of disposal costs and reductions in number of landfills that create a need to seek for other solutions to either reduce, recycle and reuse or providing a good material storage management for the material from being damage and lead to construction waste.

Lastly, the contractors in every construction industry should be practising 3Rs Concept or provide proper training regarding on efficiency of the material storage management. This will hopefully to prevent losses in the construction industry because the amount of construction waste generated is equal to waste of money in the construction company. This research is carried out to investigate the best options to minimize or dispose the waste from the site in order to make the company gain profits.

Research Methodology

This research will be focus on the benefits of the construction waste management, the types of waste used to reuse or recycle and the method used to overcome the construction waste in order to minimize the construction waste in Malaysia construction industry.

The stages of the research methodology can divided into 4 stages, which are:

Stage 1 – Literature Review and the Pilot Study

Stage 2 – The Technique of Data Collections

Stage 3 – The Result of Analysis and Findings

Stage 4 – The Conclusion and Recommendation of Data Analysis

Stage 1 – Literature Review and the Pilot Study

The literature review is a critical and in depth evaluation of previous research. The literature review serves to demonstrate and more understanding and knowledge of theoretical and research issues related to research topic. In order to collect information in the literature review, the secondary sources is implement which included journal articles, books, newspapers, magazines, online sources, senior dissertation, etc. Therefore, a comprehensive of literature review regarding to the construction waste minimization in Malaysian construction industry is carry out. These will hopefully providing some useful information in carrying out the research topic in literature review. The literature review act as a guide to discovered more knowledge regarding to the research topic.

Stage 2 – The Technique of Data Collections

Primary Source

Primary source can be collected through case study, questionnaire and interview. These are the effective alternative solution that enables to collect adequate and solid information regarding to research topic. The questionnaire survey technique is chosen to collect the data.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire will be the primary data collection which was selected as survey method for this research. The data collection is based on the “open-ended” questionnaires will be given out 20-50 respondents to relevant person who has the experience and knowledge in construction waste management. The questionnaire was designed in several sections and categories, the questionnaires will be distribute to the construction industry companies located in city area of Kuala Lumpur. The target respondents to distribute the questionnaire are mainly focus on the person who has knowledge regarding to the types of waste used to reuse or recycle, the benefits of the construction waste management and the method to overcome the construction waste.

Secondary Source

Secondary source can be collected through journal articles and journal review. In this secondary source, carry out study as much journal articles as possible in order to understand and provide help on this research topic. Other than that, other secondary source in including books, newspapers, magazines, internet sources, senior dissertation will also be carried out to conduct this dissertation. The information that has been review or study must relate to the research topic in order to carry out this research efficiently.

Stage 3 – The Result of Analysis and Findings

The data can be collected through surveying in questionnaire method. The structure of the questions is based on the research topic which is minimizing construction waste in the Malaysian construction industry. Approximate 20-50 sets of questions are send to the relevant respondents who has the experience and knowledge with the construction waste minimization. The respondents are mainly targeted on the project manager, specialists, professionals, etc.

After the data of questionnaires has been collected and gathered, the analysis result will be analysed and present into bar charts, pie charts or histogram form with explanations in details regarding to the data collected. Form the data that had been collected, writing up of the content of the dissertation is used in this stage to write up the result of analysis and findings that cover the chapters proposed in every each of the following section.

Stage 4 – The Conclusion and Recommendation of Data Analysis

In this stage, the overall result of the survey is combined and gathered, then come out with the conclusion of the data analysis. After result analyse of the data is taken, recommendation of the data analysis from the survey is suggested regarding to the construction waste minimization in Malaysia construction industry.

The construction wastes minimization in Malaysian construction industry

To identify the types of waste that can be used to reuse or recycle in construction industry

To analyse the benefits of construction waste management in construction industry

To give out recommendation on how to overcome the construction waste problem in construction industry

Literature Reviews

(Secondary source)

STAGE 1

Technique of Data Collection

(Primary source, Questionnaires)

STAGE 2

The Result of Analysis and Findings

A case study about the fire protection system in commercial building

A set of question will be distribute to the commercial building’s users to dertermine theier knowledge about fire safety

An interview would be carry out to the fire safety professionalSTAGE 3

Conclusion and Recommendation

STAGE 4

Figure 1.1: The Flow Chart of the Research Methodology

Summaries of Chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Research

The Chapter 1 for the project and dissertation is introduction to the research. Under this chapter, the researcher needs to explain to the reader that the reason that choosing the dissertation title and briefly introduce the research title. The research goals for this research also one of the important parts to be included in this chapter. The aim, objectives and hypothesis to be tested for the research title should be clear before start. A research content is a basic requirement to be prepared before proceed to the next stage. This is to brief the whole process of dissertation to the reader before read the content.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Literature review is to introduce the types of materials that can be reuse and recycle in Malaysian construction industry, the construction waste management that may lead benefits to the Malaysian construction industry and recommend on how the construction waste problem can be overcome in Malaysian construction industry. In this chapter, literature review will done by carried out studies on Articles from the internet, online sources, books and journals regarding to the construction waste in Malaysian construction industry, the types of particular waste material that can be used to reuse and recycle in order to minimize the waste in Malaysia and recommend some solution to overcome the problem regarding to construction waste.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

In this chapter will explain about the research methodology used in order to carry out this research. This chapter consists of the scope of this chapter, the statement of the research aim, the rational of questionnaire, research samples and lastly the method of analysis. In the first stage, the principle of waste management that normally manage in Malaysian construction industry. The second stage will be introducing the benefits of waste management that may lead benefits to the Malaysian construction industry. After that, introduce the types of waste material that can be used to reuse and recycle and recommend the most effective ways to overcome the waste problem in Malaysian construction industry. In order to achieve effective and efficient feedback from the respondent, all the design questionnaire should met with all the research objectives.

Chapter 4: The Result of Analysis and Findings

In this chapter will analyse the result from the questionnaire that collected from the relevant respondents. The purpose of this chapter will analyse the data collected and to analyse the information that obtained to charts or histogram from the respondents regarding of that particular title.

Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations

In this chapter will sum up the conclusion and recommendation regarding of the project and dissertation on this research topic. Base on the result that obtained, the researcher should write down the conclusion and recommendation on this research topic. This will conclude all the information obtained and summarise the major conclusion to briefly explain what this research topic is all about.

1.9 Summary

As a conclusion, a brief introduction has been stated in this chapter regarding to the construction waste minimization in Malaysian construction industry. Besides that, background of construction waste in the industries is reviewed and come out with several factors such as reduce, reused, recycle and replace. Next, problem statement has been stated the problems that face in the current construction industries regarding to the waste, thus 4Rs Concept is implement to minimize the waste. Therefore, the aim and objectives is carried out to determine the research topic. Other than that, the scope of the study has also carried out to come out with the location that the researcher going to focus and what are the targeted respondents. Lastly, research methodology is carried out to determine the method used to collect the data such as primary and secondary sources. After the data collected, analysis of the result will be conducted to analyse the information obtained into charts and histogram.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, literature review is going to carry out in depth study on the overview of the Malaysian Construction industry. After that, introduce the types of waste that normally generated in Malaysia and the method to overcome the construction waste from site in order to minimize the waste produce on site. The process of this is to investigate whether Malaysia construction industry has practise and carried out the 4R Concept in order to minimize the waste on site.

2.2 The overview of the Malaysian construction industry

Figure 2.1: National GDP and Construction GDP of 2006 to 2009

In Figure 2.1 stated that the GDP has constantly increased from 2008 to 2009. This means that the economy is growing in Malaysia. Therefore, Malaysian construction projects are needed to give momentum to the economy to make firm on the Construction GDP. When the economy grows, the standard of living, opportunity for the jobs, economy will increase as well.

Whenever things that has a good side, there will be also a bad side of it. The bad side is that as there are demands of developments in Malaysia, the construction wastes produced will also increase as well. The construction industry will be known as non-environmental friendly industry due to pollution of air, water, sound and land. Other than that, it will also cause natural disasters such as flooding, landslides and so on. This is mainly due to inappropriate construction management and Lack of concern for the environmental consequences of large development projects.

It is believed that the GDP has increase constantly. This shows that the standard of living, opportunity for the jobs, economy is increasing which mean waste generate by the Malaysian construction industry will be also increasing that may lead to pollution such as noise, air, water and land. This may cause to natural disaster such as landslides and flooding. Most of the developed countries such as Kuala Lumpur, they did not concern about the waste that produced to the environment and they just concern about the profit they are going to earn after the project is done.

The construction industry in our country is fast becoming a big waste generator. The extensive building and infrastructure development projects have led to a huge increase of construction and demolition waste recently. With that in mind, the government introduced EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) in 1987 within the framework of the Environmental Quality Act (EQA). Environmental impact assessment (HA) is a legal measure to curb environmental pollution and ecological destruction at the source Environmental review of projects prevents not only environmental degradation, but also construction errors and faulty economic analysis (Yusoff, 2010).

In developed country such as United States, the construction industry has already produced tones and tones of construction waste on site. Whereas, in under develop country such as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is expected that numerous numbers of wastes is going to produce in the Malaysia construction industry. The waste produced in Malaysia will be more than United Stage due to there is more development on-going that cause waste definitely. Recently, the development of building and infrastructures project generates most of the waste due to hacking, dismantling, repairing work. On the other hand, the government also introduce the Environmental Impact Assessment. Environmental impact assessment is a legal measure to stop environmental pollution and ecological destruction at the source Environmental review of projects. It is not just minimizing the waste that generated in Malaysian construction industry but also environmental degradation.

According to Ibrahim (2010) has stated that the construction materials wastage has shown that the costs of materials have been exceeded 50 percent of the construction cost, depending on the type of construction. The main reasons of causing such material wastage due to poor setting out error, workmanship, ordering of materials not meeting specifications and requirement, excessive use of materials, breakage in poor handling of materials and improper planning of storage (Ibrahim, 2010).

This shows that in the construction industry, the percentage of the construction waste produced consist of very high percentage in Malaysia. Therefore it is time for everyone to take into consideration of implementing several ways to minimize the construction waste on site.

Some waste is unavoidable even under perfect conditions of design and construction. But excessive waste is common in the construction process and has received lack consideration by contractors or the industry. The waste levels in Malaysia is considerably high and from the Malaysia Environmental Quality Report 2005 we may find that waste may be generated and treated in many forms. “Based on notification received by the Department of Environment (DOE), a total of 548,916.11 metric tonnes of scheduled wastes were generated in 2005 as compared to 469,584.07 metric tonnes in 2004 (Teoh Su Ping, 2009).

It is surprisingly that the construction material turned up to be construction waste rapidly and gradually increasing from 2004 to 2005. It is just within one year, the waste that generated has gone up rapidly and the volume of the waste is calculated in metric tonnes of wastes which mean the production of waste is very serious in Malaysia. There is a lot of opportunity to improve on waste minimization in Malaysia.

The breakdown according to waste categories and industry types are given in (Figure 2.2 and Figure 2.3 respectively). Of the total wastes produced; 8s5,734.92 metric tonnes (15.6%) were treated and disposed at Kualiti Alam Sdn. Bhd., 8,423.26 metric tonnes (1.5%) were treated and disposed at Trinekens (Sarawak) Sdn. Bhd., 17,650.01 metric tonnes (3.2%) of clinical wastes were incinerated at licensed off-site facilities, 5,224.00 metric tonnes (1.0%) were exported for recovery purposes, 149,569.99 metric tonnes (27.2%) of scheduled wastes were recovered at off-site facilities, an estimated 120,345.25 metric tonnes (21.9%) were treated on-site and 161,968.68 metric tonnes (29.5%) were stored onsite at waste generators’ premises. Six land farms and 16 on-site waste incinerators had been licensed by DOE to allow for on-site treatment and incineration respectively.” (Malaysia environmental quality report, 2005).

Figure 2.2 DOE: Quality of Scheduled Waste Generated by Category, 2005

(Sources from Malaysia environmental quality report, 2005)

Figure 2.3 DOE: Quality of Scheduled Waste Generated by Industry, 2005

(Sources from Malaysia environmental quality report, 2005)

2.3 The types of waste produced in Malaysia

There are various waste generated in Malaysia industry. The waste can be differentiating as following:

Construction and demolition waste

Commercial and industrial waste

Domestic waste

Special waste

In this research, it is mainly focus on construction and demolition waste that generated in Malaysian construction industry. The construction and demolition waste is accounted as the second highest in Malaysia. Although construction and demolition waste is not the highest waste that produced in Malaysia but construction and demolition is consider quite high in Malaysia.

Figure 2.4 Types of waste produced in Malaysia

2.3.1 Construction and Demolition waste

The construction industry uses a wide of material including lumber or wood, concrete, aggregate, drywall, masonry products, plastic and metal products. In addition, hazardous materials such as paints, solvents, and adhesive are used. Many of these materials eventually become wastes. Typically, up to 10 percent of the materials delivered to a construction site become waste (Magdich, P. 1995).

According to Magdich (1995), it is understandable that the most of the material used in construction industries are normally wood, concrete, aggregate, metal and so on. The construction waste defines as most of these materials only uses 90 percent in the construction and the rest of the 10 percent will be end up wastage on site. The demolition waste defines as waste that generate from the demolition work of the buildings or structures. The component of the construction and demolition wastes differ mainly depend on the mature of the project or activities involved. Table 2.1 shows the major components of the Construction and Demolition wastes.

Construction waste

Demolition waste

Dimension lumber

Dimension lumber

Plywood

Plywood

Metals

Asphalt

Concrete / Masonry

Concrete / Masonry

Fibreglass

Drywall

Soil and land-clearing waste

Appliances

Foam insulation

Plastics

Hazardous waste (solvent / Oils)

Carpet

Others

Others

Table 2.1: Major Component of Construction and Demolition wastes

(Source from Magdich.P.1995)

Construction waste

Percent (%) By Volume

Dimension lumber

25

Gypsum Wallboard

15

Masonry and Tile

12

Cardboard

10

Manufactured Wood

10

Asphalt

6

Other Wastes

5

Fibreglass

5

Other Packaging

4

Metal

4

Plastic and Foam

4

Total

100The estimated composition of Construction wastes in Malaysia is shown in below Table 2.2 and 2.3.

Table 2.2: Estimated Composition of Construction waste in Malaysia

(Source from Magdich, P. 1995)

Demolition waste

Percent (%) By Volume

Wood Products

33

Masonry and Tile

13

Concrete

53

Others

1

Total

100

Table 2.3: Estimated Composition of Demolition waste in Malaysia

(Source from Magdich, P. 1995)

2.4 The classification of the construction waste

In construction industry, the waste can be produced in anytime and anyplace on site or off site. There are great possibility of the material waste may be arise when deliveries to site is inappropriate handling or material on sites have been idling for too long. This means the wastes can be occurred in any moment and in all stages of constructing the projects. Therefore, material should be handling appropriately, mov