The Construction Industry's Material Waste: The Root Causes and Solutions

• Lucio Soibelman

  English

  Author

• Claudia De Cesare

  English

  Author

Material waste has been recognized as a major problem in the construction industry that has important implications both for the efficiency
industry and for the environmental impact of construction projects. Moreover, waste measurement plays an important role in the
management of production systems since it is an effective way to assess their performance, allowing areas of potential improvement to be
pointed out. This paper describes the main results of two research studies carried out in Brazil that investigated the occurrence of material
waste at 74 building sites located in different regions of that country. Some typical figures for the waste of some key construction
materials are provided, and the main causes of waste in the sector are discussed. The results indicate that the waste of materials in the
Brazilian building industry is fairly high and that a large variability in waste incidence is found across different projects. Most of this
waste can be avoided by implementing inexpensive preventive measures, mostly related to managerial improvements.

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