Causes Of Waste Management : Minimising Construction Waste

The WMP looks at the waste generated during the demolition and construction stages of a new development and ongoing management of the development, with attention on waste reduction.

During the construction phase, there will be a lot happening all over. This may vary from the actual erecting of the building, to the transport of goods, to the extraction of materials needed, etc. There will be a lot of damage done to the o-zone layer, a lot of habitat and biodiversity destroyed, amongst other things.

Municipal solid wastes are leftovers made by the population such as food, plastic bottles, household wares and many more. These items referred by most as “the garage” or “trash”. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015) In the early 1900’s, incinerators were used to burn waste however by the Mid-20th century, lawmakers enacted the first government regulations in an attempt to address increasing concerns about the environmental impact of unregulated waste management practices. With the first waste management legislation being passed in 1965, brought along the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, thus bringing us into a new world of waste management.(Vault, n.d.)

She sorted through the trash of several different categories of waste, trash, paper, plastic, and aluminum. Out of what she collected, “76% was not recyclable and 23% could be recycled” (page 1). In addition, Indiana State student, Matt McColley also did a research project on the waste production in the Lincoln Quads. Jeffery Mervis 2012 states, The United States, for example, produces roughly 12 billion tons of waste each year, of which only 350 million tons are classified as municipal solid waste” (p.668).

Recycling has turned into an undeniably vital issue in the United States as both the populace and the measure of waste all the people who creates to keep on increasing. Municipal solid waste (MSW) incorporates the items that are thrown into the bins, for example, old furniture, tires, or yard clippings. As indicated by a study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Municipal solid waste generation expanded from 2.68 to 4.34 pounds for per person on every day between 1960 and 2009. Americans created around 243 million tons of MSW in

The Environmental Protection Agency released the ‘Advancing Sustaining Materials Management: 2014 Fact Sheet’ in November of 2016 and Americans produce 4.4 pounds of trash every single day.

Construction projects use a significant amount of materials and supplies. When these materials are used in a socially and environmentally responsible way, it improves your personal relationship with the environment and reduces your impact on the earth.

Dumpster rentals help you keep your construction site waste free, which can save your project

Tampa International is one these few airports that allow fight operators to recycle waste collected during flights once they land here at Tampa terminal.  Through the past five years, the airport’s terminal recycling program reportedly helped divert approximately 1,100 tons of solid waste from the landfill each year. Even the contractors, those working on the airport’s massive 952 million dollar expansion project, had to abide by this recycling program that helped an enormous amount of construction wastes, especially recycling 343 tons of asphalt and 1,300 tons of concrete.

In 1970, when Americans produced 121 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW), three-quarters went directly into landfills, one-fifth was incinerated, and less

quarry and borrow areas will have negative impacts on soil resources due to the removal of topsoil and

Concern about the environment and preservation of natural resource had become a heated debate among citizens, designers, and politics. United States alone uses a significant among of world’s energy and produces a great amount of greenhouse gas. According to U.S. Department of Energy’s EIA for 2007, commercial and residential buildings consume about 40 percent of the energy usage in the United States. Building constructions plays an important role in sustainable development and environmental preservation because building life cycle starts with

Waste Management, Inc., incorporated in 1968, had become a leader in the industry of waste management services ranging from industrial operations to curbside collection. This company had become synonymous with many different kinds of disposal services that allowed for the company to grow and grow with a solid base over the course of twenty-eight years. Finally in 1996, the company reported total assets of almost $20 billion with net income close to $200 million. However, even with this growth and solid base, the company was feeling competitive pressures and net income was on the decline.

Disposing of waste has huge environmental impacts and can cause serious problems. Most waste is buried in landfill sites holes in the ground, sometimes old quarries, sometimes specially dug. Some waste will eventually rot, but not all, and in the process it may smell or generate methane gas, which is explosive and contributes to the greenhouse effect. Leachate produced as waste decomposes may cause pollution. Badly managed landfill sites may attract vermin or cause litter.

To attempt to solve this problem we must first define the scale of the problem. Over 95% of our nation’s overall waste is on the largescale industrial level (farming, mining, and industrial). (“Waste Management” 4638) The remaining five percent is municipal solid waste. Of that, 60% is from construction and commercial operations. (Nolan and Reaves) That is a staggering amount when one considers that our nation threw out 254 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2013. (EPA) Industrial waste, though it sounds all encompassing, is typically defined to large scale. Whereas commercial businesses can be both large and small. Since these definitions lend to a very wide and diverse range of waste, we must narrow it down for the purpose and constraints of this composition. Large scale mega-corporations tend to generate a lot of revenue and are therefore, often times, publically traded. This fact places them more in the lime-light, under the watchful eye of the EPA and the public. Smaller, privately held, commercial businesses fall out of the spectrum of industry and are able to fly more under the radar. This smaller size lends more to frugalness and therefore less concern with issues