QUANTIFICATION OF MATERIAL WASTAGE AND THEIR CAUSES IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

Construction Industry of Pakistan is vast; it is one of the largest sectors of the economy and sharing approximately 2.3% the country‟s GDP. A countable number of material industries are associated with the construction process. Waste generated by the construction processes has been proved to have significant negative impact on country‟s economy as well as on the environment. The contractor‟s profit margin is on the low which has seriously raised the competition to get more work. A significant volume of the wastes is generated by different type of the activities such as improper design, wrong material estimation, inaccurate ordering and procurement, changes in design, poor handling, improper storage, etc. Also the control and management of construction processes to reduce, reuse, recycle and effective disposal of the material wastes has a serious bearing on the final cost, quality and time of the project. Effective waste management can be helpful for reducing quantity of wastes generated from construction and in making a substantial contribution towards sustainable development and cost control. In this research, a benchmarking approach has been introduced to quantify the material wastage in building construction projects of Pakistan in different cities and to identify the causes and factors for these wastes. This study focuses to evaluate the quantities of waste and causes contributing for the wastage in different type of building projects. A waste diagnostic survey was performed by interviewing different contractor‟s staff on thirty eight project sites. The study indicated that the most wasteful material were “Bricks”, “Tiles”, and “ Plaster from mortar”, and the most significant causes of material waste were “Improper worker‟s skill”, “Poor supervision”, “Lack of management”, and “equipment malfunction”. The summary results and discussion may lead the experts and decision makers to understand the actual situation of construction waste and to develop the tools through which waste can be reduced up to a certain limit.