Causes Influencing Construction Waste Generation During the Design Process: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Abstract Despite the social and economic contributions of the construction industry towards achieving sustainable development objectives, it has an adverse effect on the environment such as the generation of waste, water, and energy consumption. Construction waste (CW) is the loss of materials that are produced during or after the construction process and has no remaining value. Several countries promote waste elimination plans at early stages to reduce CW at its source. The Egyptian government is expanding its investments in new mega projects and infrastructure facilities like new administrative capital, bridges, roads, energy projects which resulted in increasing the rate and amount of generated CW. The literature review stated that 33% of CW generated in the primary design stage is the result of design flaws such as design errors and lack of waste management strategies used during the design process. Accordingly, this research aims to investigate the factors influencing CW generation during the design process. To achieve this aim, the development of proper research methodology took place, where it consisted of qualitative analysis of previously published literature and examining case studies to accomplish two objectives. Firstly, an investigation of previous literature focused on studying the design process, CW, and the global and national waste management strategies. Secondly, three case studies were introduced and analysed to study the role of design out waste strategies towards reducing CW during the design process.