Possible Project Constraints And Solutions

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

PROJECT REPORT

MODULE CODE: F317PRO

BY

SIU SIONG LEE

0803580/1

23/04/2013

Richard Skyes

CEM, Reading University

CONTENTS PAGE

Task 1

Executive summary

Introduction

Methodology

Literature review

Pilot questionnaire study

Questionnaire

Interview

Project plan

Preliminary headings and sub-headings

Possible project constraints

Time

Data

Quality

Lack of participants

Conclusion

Task 2

Preliminary literature review

Waste in construction and demolition

Construction and demolition waste recycling legislation and regulations

Commitment of construction organisations practices in sustainable development

References

Annexure

Task 1

Executive summary

The aim and objectives for this research has been concluded in Assignment 1. The purpose of this Assignment 2 is to identify a research methodology which combining both qualitative and quantitative technique. A pilot questionnaire study will be carried out prior to main primary research through Questionnaire and Interview.

A Gantt chart work programme (see Annex 2) will provide a clear work programmes and ensuring all works will be completed on time. There are 4 key main areas in this work programme; Personal life, Data compilation, Data analysis and Project write-up.

A summary of preliminary headings and sub-headings which may form the actual contents of the research report however they are not concluded.

There are limitation which has been identified such as time taken due to working life, lacking in data or too much, lack of participants and quality of the soft data of all which will be dealt accordingly and in timely manner.

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to present the structured outline as a guideline in completing this research. A brief report has been provided in confirming the methodology, project plan with detailed work programme, summarising preliminary headings and subheadings for the main report and possible project constraints have been identified and solution to overcome such constraints.

Methodology

3.1 Literature review

Literature review gathered from the secondary sources will help to increase the background knowledge of the aim of this research. Secondary sources taken from primary research were the most desired sources. Information gathered here will guide on structuring the content of the project, guidelines in producing set of questionnaires and an important step in forming an initial conclusion which is based on existing information but not restricted to academic writing. The anticipated dateline to complete literature review is on 23th April 2013. Sources of information can be found in Annex I.

3.2 Pilot questionnaire study

A draft questionnaires will be formed at this stage and the validity test will be carry out with Supervisor, colleagues, Contract Manager and Director of the Employer whom I work with. This is to further clarify and made any changes to the questionnaires. It is anticipated to complete no more than 2 weeks.

3.3 Questionnaire

This is the primary source of information and the questionnaires will be developed closely with the aims and objectives of this dissertation. The questionnaires will be designed to collect information which can be used for data analysis at later stage. It will be a combined approach of both qualitative and quantitative selection and it will be distributed through surveymonkey as discussed in Assignment 1.

3.4 Interview

The target interview to be achieved is three interviewee who work for waste industry in Norwich. The interviewee will be contacted in advanced with a participation consent form stating the purpose of this interview. Each interview will be limited to one hour if possible. Telephone interview may be conducted if time and distance are limiting factors. All interviews will be recorded.

A target of 6 weeks for primary research will be conducted.

Project plan

A project plan, can be found in Annex II, has been formulated to meet the due date of the assignments. The programme is divided into 4 key areas; personal life limitation, data compilation, data analysis and project write-up.

Personal life limitation details other commitments such as working life, holidays and other module assignments.

Data compilation is where the most time will be spent in reading and compiling information as secondary data to the project. This is an important task to form questionnaire in order to achieve the aim and objectives of this research.

Data analysis will take place once the questionnaire has reach its milestone, sorting the data using the surveymonkey tools and providing detail analysis of the primary data which will be shown in form of bar chart or any other format which will simplify the presentation.

Project write-up will begin with a draft, check for grammar errors, ensuring the format write-up and reference section are to meet CEM rules.

Preliminary headings and sub-headings

A table of content has been produced to provide a better view of the content of this dissertation and a provisional table of contents for this project is attached in Annex III. The provisional table of content are based on theoretical framework study on the literature review, aim and objectives that has been carried out and noted in the project draft notes.

Possible project constraints and solutions

6.1 Time

Planned time for this project may not sufficient to fulfil the aims and objectives. By sacrificing annual leave to made up time may overcome this issue.

6.2 Data

There is possibility lacking of data in research, as one has been identified at early stage study where the official figure of waste published by WRAP is on 2008. A point of contact with WRAP will be carried out to find out any updated data has been published. Filter analysis of secondary data is required for "too much data" in order to focusing on the aim and objectives of this research.

Quality

Most secondary data are gathered from the internet are unchecked by peer-review prior to academic publication. It is therefore essential to check the author and origin of soft data.

Lack of participants

There are potential of participants that may reluctant to participate in this research who decline the invitation for interview. One of the key success for this research is to require 30 participants to answer the questionnaires posted in surveymonkey. Waste sector is a small area, the feedback from the questionnaires may not indicate the exact results that reflects to the actual construction and demolition waste recycling. By asking colleagues to spread the word around their network and posting in building forums will hopefully increase the chances of getting the minimum participants.

Conclusion

The project outline is the planned programme on how it is intended to be structured and completed, with relation to the planned work programme whilst emphasizing the merit to keeping to it in order to complete this research purposes and to meet the submission dateline.

Task 2

Preliminary literature review

8.1 The definition of waste

‘Any substance or object the holder discards, intends to discard or is required to discard is WASTE under the Waste Framework Directive (European Directive (WFD) 2006/12/EC), as amended by the new WFD (Directive 2008/98/EC, coming into force in December 2010). Once a substance or object has become waste, it will remain waste until it has been fully recovered and no longer poses a potential threat to the environment or to human health. From this point onwards, the waste ceases to be waste and there is no longer any reason for it to be subject to the controls and other measures required by the Directive’ (aggregain, 2010).

Waste comes from many sources; Figure 1 shows the way in which the waste is spread across different sectors.

wrfg02.gif

Figure 1. Estimated total annual waste arisings by sector. (Defra, 2010)

8.2 Waste in construction and demolition

When discussing C&D waste, it is critical to acknowledge a building products life cycle in order to be able to determine whether the products are feasible with reference to recycling.

Figure 2 represents a typical building products life cycle from the materials resource extraction to recovery or disposal.

Figure 2. The building products life cycle. (Humphreys, 1994)

The Department for Communities and Local Government carried out 4 surveys in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005 into the arising and use of C&D wastes in England and figure 3 summarises the results of this survey. ‘Total C&D waste for England was estimated at 89.63 million tonnes in 2005. 46 million tonnes were recycled and a further 15 million tonnes were spread on exempt sites (usually land reclamation, agricultural improvement or infrastructure projects). The remaining 28 million tonnes were sent to landfill (including backfilling at quarries, and landfill engineering) as waste. Estimates suggest that the amount of construction and demolition waste generated in England has remained stable at about 90 million tonnes from 2001 to 2005. This is an increase from about 69 million tonnes in 1999. Between 2001 and 2005 the proportion of construction and demolition waste recycled by crushers and screeners has increased from 49 % to 52 % however, the proportion of construction and demolition waste sent to landfill has increased from 26 % to 31 % and the amount of waste going to exempt sites has fell from around 25 % to 17 %.’ (defra, 2010)

Construction and demolition waste management

Figure 3 - Construction and Demolition waste management 1999 to 2005. (defra, 2010)

8.3 Types of Waste Material

In order to achieve the aim of investigating what common waste materials can be recycled and discussing the ways in which they are recycled, research has been focused on distinguishing the most common materials that arise from demolition and construction industries, these can be categorised into the following components;

8.3.1 Soils

‘Inert material makes up the bulk of construction and demolition waste. Segregation of all recoverable materials will help maximise efficient use of these bulk materials. Reducing contamination and improving quality will enable the high grade application of inert waste materials’ (wastebook, 2010)

8.3.2 Concrete

‘Scrap concrete is often sent to landfill. We developed a system to crush the concrete waste and re-use it as aggregate in our re-building work. This has resulted in major savings to the Council and, of course, a much more environmentally friendly solution overall’ (cenews, 2010)

8.3.3 Masonry

Brickwork is a material commonly used in structures in construction with large quantities arising during demolition. Masonry can be usefully recycled as Humphreys (1994, pg 21) states, ‘Several recycling site operators contacted in this study kept stockpiles of masonry debris, built up over the summer for processing and sale during the winter period when ground conditions are particular poor.’ This statement underlines that masonry can be particularly beneficial when recycled

8.3.4 Stone

Stone is another fundamental construction and demolition waste that can arise. When excavating for foundations stone can arise depending on the whereabouts in the country where construction site is located. When recycling stone one of the most common and valuable uses is to use the stone as a fill when necessary. Humphrey (1994, pg 24) states, ‘Dressed stone from the demolition of older buildings can be reused in the refurbishment work. One operator contacted was proposing to recover large stone blocks from demolition of older buildings and slice them into thin slabs for facing material on new buildings.’

8.3.5 Metal – Nonferrous/Ferrous

When discussing construction waste recycling one of the most consistent and easiest materials to recover are metals, Humphreys (1994, pg 31) elaborates, ‘metals are recovered and recycled almost as a matter of course. There is a well developed industry with trade associations and recognised markets. Non ferrous metals such as copper, aluminium, lead and tin have numerous markets where a contractor can find buyers, these metals are high-value commodities of the C&D waste world’.

8.3.6 Timber

Timber is used as structural components in floors and roofs and in internal fixtures and fittings. Wastage of timber components in construction occurs when the material is over-ordered, surplus, off-cuts and spoilt. Meanwhile in demolition, timber is recovered and can be offered for resale, Winkler (2008, pg 53) enhances ‘With the exception of treated lumber, this waste can be collected in a single container and marketed to scrap wood dealers to create mulch or for use as boiler fuel’.

8.3.7 Plasterboard

Plasterboard is commonly associated when discussing construction and demolition waste. This material has a variety of methods available when recycling, one option is to recycle the scrap drywall back into the manufacture of new drywall with this method mainly practiced by the many wallboard manufacturers, when recycling drywall using this method the majority of the paper must be removed. In selected areas, gypsum wallboard scraps may be ground and used as a soil supplement. This could be desirable in farm country, but also may be allowed on non-farming sites as a soil enrichment tool. As discussed previously only new drywall scraps that are free of nails, drywall compound or paint can be used as a soil fertiliser, ‘Gypsum is a product used in agriculture as a fertiliser and as a soil amendment, since it does contain calcium and sulfur, which are both essential plant nutrients.’ (wastecap, 2008).

8.4 How is the Government planning to resolve the issue?

The government is trying to reduce the continuously increasing problem of waste for many years. Large quantities of documents have been produced to try a reduce waste disposal (particularly landfill) such as the environment white paper 1990, making waste work 1995, a way with waste 1999, waste strategy 2000 and an updated waste strategy 2007. All of these documents containing a set targets of which have not been met or are unlikely to be met. The main issues to be that the policies and instruments within them do not create a sound system of practice.

8.5 The Waste Hierarchy

The Waste Hierarchy is at the centre of all waste management legislation and government waste policy (Figure 4). It aims to prioritise the management of waste at the upper end of the hierarchy with prevention as the preferred strategy and disposal to landfill as the least preferred.

Figure 4: Moving waste.png

Figure 4: The Waste Hierarchy (European Commission Publication, 2010)

References

Annexure

Annex I – The sources of information as to date are:

Course modules available at CEM VLE online that are relevant and useable for this research such as Waste and hazardous substance Paper 8297V11-0, The environment: Problems, issues and controls Paper 8294V12-0, Environment issues Paper 0569V2-0 and Waste management Paper 2875V3-1.

Published books such as Recycling of Demolished Concrete and Masonry by Hansen T.C. 2007, Disaster planning, structural assessment, demolition and recycling by Lauritzen E. 2007 and Construction demolition waste by Limbachiya, C. M, Roberts, J. J. 2004.

Through availability of online resources, EU and UK government websites such as WRAP, Defra, Waste framework directive via European Commission Environment, UK Legislative Framework, Strategic forum for construction, eurostat, GOV.UK, Building Resource Establishment and wastecap resource solution. Some large construction organisations such as Berkeley Group, Costain, Mace and Willmott Dixon Group has publish articles that relates to this research. However this are not limited to EGi, iSurv and Athens which are available at CEM VLE external links.

Any articles that are relevant to construction waste in newspaper are under observation until end of June.

Accessible library of University of East Anglia for academic journals, research reports, books and conference papers that relevant to this research.

Annex II – Research Programme

Annex III – Provisional Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Methodology

Literature review

Waste in construction & demolition

Construction & demolition waste recycling legislation and regulations

Commitment of construction organisations practices in sustainable development

Questionnaires, findings and analysis

Conclusion and recommendations