Construction Waste – Definition, Classification, Sources Impacts, Management, and Quantification

This chapter discusses the definition of construction waste, the classification methods adopted in the literature to report the composition of construction waste, and the sources and impact of construction waste generation. Existing construction waste management practices and their impacts on waste reduction are also discussed. The literature identified that accurate quantification and detailed classification of CW are paramount to improving their management across the life cycle stages. Recent attention is being directed towards integrating advanced technologies like Building Information Modelling, Artificial Intelligence, robotic models, big data, and geographical information systems into the quantification workflows. However, the data and information barriers, including ununified and unstandardised data structure, unidirectional communication with Building Information Modelling platforms, inadequate assessment of waste impacts, lack of information granularity, and lack of whole life-cycle assessment, hinder wide-scale applications of existing models. The systematic literature review approach adopted to explore the functionalities of existing construction waste quantification models and their limitations is discussed in this chapter.