Towards developing a tool for circular building elements in the construction and waste industry

Abstract

The construction and waste industry would move towards applying Circular Economy (CE) strategies, to meet the circular ambition of the Dutch government before 2050. In order to accelerate this transition, it is necessary to explore and adopt more innovative and sustainable solutions within the construction and waste sector. A small amount of waste including materials and elements from the construction projects is being reused after End-of-Life phase, and this issue must be optimized considerably. On the other hand, the aforementioned sector suffers from the lack of a centralized and harmonized data platform which can contribute either to advancing of CE transition by optimizing reusability or the collaboration among the stakeholders involved in the deconstruction process. There are still various sustainable and circular issues that need to be taken into consideration when realizing, developing and enriching a newly designed data sources. Therefore, this research is aimed to conceptualize and develop a ‘Circular Construction Element (CCE) Information System’ as a tool which consists of an import sheet, an analysis and processing sheet and a dashboard. The ‘CCE Information System’ takes into account the functional performance characteristics of the existing elements and also the cost-related issues of the stakeholders involved in the deconstruction for reuse process. The developed tool is therefore intended to support various stakeholders in the decision-making process regarding reusing the existing elements.
In this study, different functional performance properties of the existing concrete elements have been analyzed and it can be concluded that those characteristics depends largely on functional properties of the substances used in them. On the other hand, there are a large number of stakeholders involved in deconstruction process with different ambitions and benefits. The research showed that deconstruction for reuse is an uneconomic process for the actors, as this process requires more time, manpower, equipment and costly interventions. By measuring the Reuse Potential (RP) factor from a functional (qualitative) and economic (quantitative) perspective, it is possible to indicate the extent to which the functional residual value and also the profitability of reuse of the element is. The developed tool has been applied in real cases and the results showed that the existing elements have sufficient functional reuse potential value, but this depends largely on the function of the newly designed projects. Furthermore, the reuse cost including deconstruction and other associated costs can be optimized by the proposed tool. Thus, based on the results obtained by applying the CCE information system in real cases, it can be concluded that the existing elements can be kept in a closed loop by finding the elements and linking them to the most suitable project from a functional and economic point of view. Moreover, the client and the contractor (demolition company) can deal with many costs uncertainties, including benefits and loss. These parties may also face different uncertainties that can arise due to many other reasons such as the exceedance of process time, additional labor costs, and uncertainties regarding salvage value. Therefore, it can highly be recommended to analyze the impact of those uncertainties on the deconstruction cost and consequently on the reuse and other associated costs as these uncertainties will take into consideration in the deconstruction process.