Approaches for enhancing the construction and demolition waste management strategy in Jordan

Despite the globally recognized importance of construction and demolition waste management, Jordan employs an inadequate national construction and demolition waste management strategy that is confined to discarding of construction and demolition waste to landfill. This work has identified evidence of several significant impediments to successful construction and demolition waste management in the Jordanian construction industry. It is shown that most construction and demolition waste in Jordan is disposed of informally along roads or in open spaces between residential areas, with no environmental protection measures in place. Thus, this work aims to present proposals aimed at improving Jordan's strategy for managing construction and demolition waste in a manner that the Jordanian construction industry is likely to accept and adopt. Evidence is provided to demonstrate that construction and demolition waste recycling is both desirable and achievable in Jordan and that informal dumping of construction and demolition waste should be eliminated. Several gaps in knowledge have been identified during the review of previous literature, the review reveals several questions that need further investigation. Thus, the research has employed a mixed methodology approach that entails undertaking material testing, archival data collection, closed and open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with practitioners and governmental bodies involved in construction and demolition waste management. The literature review was utilised to analyse both international best practices in waste management and peculiarities with Jordan's construction sector. The analysis of the literature reveals that current strategies for managing construction and demolition waste in Jordan are insufficiently developed and therefore hinder improvement of the current state of construction and demolition waste management in the country. The main findings demonstrate that the construction sector has a significant impact on Jordan’s environment by manufacturing over 5 million m3 of concrete and extracting around 4-4.25 million m3 of aggregate per year (2019 data). In addition, generating around 6 million m3 of construction and demolition waste, nearly 50% of which is informally dumped. The findings have identified that most problems relating to construction and demolition waste in the country are associated with governmental controls and construction and demolition contractors. Including a general lack of legislative control and its enforcement accompanied with poor oversight and contractors’ perspective and willingness. In addition, appropriate procurement methods are not adopted, particularly for demolition projects. Results have shown that the absence of recycled waste material design codes and poor waste disposal systems are strongly influential factors too. The findings here identify the measures necessary to push the construction industry toward improved construction and demolition waste management. This can be achieved by raising awareness of the value of crushed concrete aggregates as a resource for new concrete construction in Jordan. In addition, establishing a set of proposals targeted at enhancing Jordan's construction and demolition waste management strategy that are effective, the likely effectiveness has been reviewed and confirmed by industry experts. Findings show that if crushed concrete aggregates is recycled, Jordan might save around 11.5-13% of the total cost of sourcing of raw materials in concrete manufacturing. Meanwhile, the key aspects of these proposals include improving the current government legislation and regulations, developing the industry and its workforce and improving planning and development strategies. The research not only makes proposals for enhancement in Jordan's construction sector, but they also lay the groundwork for future benchmarking studies for construction and demolition waste management.