Preliminary Headings And Sub Headings

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.

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

Observation of figure 1 underlines how construction and demolition produces nearly 1/3 of the total waste produced overall for all of the working sectors in the year 2004.

8.2 Waste in construction and demolition

When discussing construction and demolition waste it is critical to acknowledge a building products life cycle, this is imperative in order to be able to determine whether the products are feasible with reference to recycling.

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

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

Figure 2 shows how any building materials life evolves. Recyclable materials will be recovered whereas un-recyclable materials will result in incineration or disposal.

In 2005 the Department for Communities and Local Government carried out a survey into the arisings and use of construction and demolition wastes in England. This followed three earlier surveys in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Figure 3 summarises the results of this survey. ‘Total construction and demolition waste for England was estimated at 89.6 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)

Figure 4 represents from the time period 1999 to 2005, in recent times there has been a lack of data in order to produce statistics, however the carbon footprint is one of the major problems that the whole globe have been tackling, these figures should see a decrease as more and more people are taking measures in minimising waste, this is enhanced by the European Commission, ‘The available data for the C&D sector is generally incomparable due to the current lack of any statistical reporting at a European level. However, since the mandatory waste management plans across many Member States the quality of C&D waste reporting is likely to improve over time.’ (eurostat, 2010). This can also be argued as Limbachiya (2004, pg 27) explain, ‘Waste amounts vary considerably from country to country. This can be partly explained by the economic, cultural and population differences that exist among countries and in some cases by various technical issues. Generally the amount of construction and demolition waste is increasing for most countries. On the other hand the dominant management method is landfilling, and steps must be taken to promote other more environmental friendly options, such as recycling. The growing welfare in the EU countries leads to a demand for better accommodation and therefore to increasing renovation and demolition of old houses and buildings.’ This is further proven by Lauritzen (2007, pg 45) who states, ‘The main problem identified is the scarcity of quantified and standardised information. The EU Member countries cannot provide this kind of information for the specific waste stream. Inadequacies in the data sets make it impossible to give an accurate account of the total amount of C&D Waste generated throughout Europe as well as to assess future trends. It is estimated that the situation will improve in the coming years with the enforcement of the Waste Statistics Regulation’

Within the EU construction and demolition waste accounts for approximately 25% of the overall waste generated. With this amount of generated waste there are three major problems to the environment that arise, Limbachiya (2004, pg 27) concur, ‘Construction and demolition waste accounts for approximately 25% of the total waste generation in the EU. The main environmental concern is due to the existence of various hazardous substances in the C&D waste, e.g. asbestos, which is hazardous itself and PVC, which in some treatment techniques causes emissions of toxic gases (dioxin). In addition, the use of raw materials (gravel and sandpits) causes distortation of the landscape and may cause problems for the level and quality of groundwater. Finally, disposal and landfill of this kind of waste is a problem for the limited capacity of landfills. The major part of the waste stream is inert waste, consequently the problems of leaking and emissions from landfills are limited to specific fractions of waste from construction and demolition.’

To achieve objective 1, critical analysis of landfills will need to be discussed.

‘Landfill is the worst environmental option for much of the waste produced in this country. The methane it produces is a potent greenhouse gas – 21 times more potent than CO2.’ (Defra, 2010)

Landfills were the major route that the industry took in disposing of construction and demolition waste, the reasons for the existence of landfills were simplicity and economy. It was easier and less expensive to send demolished building materials and construction waste to landfills than to attempt to recycle them. Coventry (1999, pg 101) enhances, ‘Indeed, the recycling markets barely existed for many demolition materials. Contractors seeking markets for any waste beyond asphalt, brick, or concrete would find few takers, as manufacturers had not developed a wide range of products using recycled waste, and still often preferred to use virgin materials to control quality and costs’. However, as raw materials are becoming scarcer and more expensive to extract and communities began resisting landfill expansions, the economics of waste management flipped in favor of recycling. Manufacturers began to look at recycled waste as a more reliable and cost-effective supply source for raw material, and altered existing products or developed new ones to better use recycled products. The economic case for recycling has become a solid argument for contractors to adopt a hierarchal approach to waste management on their sites.

‘There is a charge for every load of waste you take to landfill – But the organisations below may want to use your waste, or they could direct you to someone who does’ (Wastebook, 2010)

Sending waste to landfill incorporates a charge, wastebook have enlisted various organisations within their website that may want or obtain the waste for use somewhere else.

Winkler (2008, pg 37) states the reasons why recycling is a smarter, more profitable, and more sustainable way to deal with construction and demolition waste, and these are as follows;

‘Employment: Ecocyle.org estimates that for each job in a landfill, 10 other people are employed elsewhere in processing recycled products and another 25 are employed in manufacturing products from recycled materials.

Costs: Landfills and incinerators are economic disasters. Roughly 20 percent of Superfund sites on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) list are landfills, and all landfills require long-term monitoring to check for toxic leachate (also known as "garbage juice"). Incinerators require large capital investments and require a continual stream of garbage to remain economical. Even the most efficient incinerators emit dioxin, mercury, lead, and cadmium into the environment. The fact that no new incinerators have been constructed in the United States since 1995 is powerful evidence that they are not economical alternatives to recycling.

Energy: Recycling saves energy through reducing the net amount of energy expended in extracting and using raw materials. For example, for every one million tons of aluminum material recycled, Americans save the equivalent of 35 million barrels (5.6 million m3) of oil. For every million tons of PET and HDPE plastic recycled, U.S. consumers save approximately 9 million barrels of oil.’

These figures and information represent the United States reasons for recycling, the same information and data would be present for the UK and Europe but the figures would vary due to population.

To achieve the aims and objectives, it is imperative that the values of the different wastes and means of recycling or disposal are researched. One of the main aims is the discussion of landfills, this is due to landfilling being an environmentally damaging means of disposal. Critical examination has proven that disposing by the means of landfill is slowly deteriorating with waste management favoring recycling as a means of recovering materials. Not only is recycling more environmentally friendly than landfill, recycling also produces more employment opportunities, can be less costly and also saves energy.

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 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