| Author: | Cheung, Ho |
| Title: | Construction and demolition waste management : a comparison between United States and Hong Kong |
| Degree: | M.Sc. |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Subject: | Construction and demolition debris -- China -- Hong Kong -- Management Construction and demolition debris -- United States -- Management Construction industry -- China -- Hong Kong -- Waste disposal Construction industry -- United States -- Waste disposal Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Multi-disciplinary Studies Department of Civil and Structural Engineering |
| Pages: | 9, v, 115, [15] leaves : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.) ; 30 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | This thesis is as partially completion of the Msc course in Environmental Engineering in Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The methodologies adopted are literature review, case study and table comparison. There are five sections in this thesis which as followings, Section 1 - Introduction and background Section 2- Literature Review Section 3- Comparison between US and HK Section 4- Comparison Section 5- Recommendation In Hong Kong, the total waste production is about 40,000 tons per day and 32,170 tons per day is Construction and Demolition Waste(C&D Waste). For the C&D waste, about 78.5% was ended at the reclamation or public filling site which is about 25,680 tons per day. With the economic development, more and more people concern about the environment. The reclamation project will change the nature sea conditiont and will damage the sea eco-logical environment. Therefore, the government are facing a big pressure from the public to reduce the reclamation project number and scale. If the scale and number of reclamation project reduced, where the C&D waste will go? At the moment, there are 21.5% of C&D waste will end at the municipal landfill site that is not cost-effective and occupied the valuable landfill space. If more C&D waste go to the landfill, it will seriously shorten the operation life of the existing landfills. Identify new landfill site in the new century is almost impossible in Hong Kong. Therefore, we need to do something to reduce the C&D waste production and enlarge the recycle portion. United States, as one of developed country, have lots of successful experience in controlling the C&D waste production. In accordance with the statistic data, the average C&D waste production rate in Hong Kong is 70% higher than US. The purpose of this thesis is investigating the C&D waste management system in US to find some successful experiences that can be applied in Hong Kong. The definition of the C&D waste in Hong Kong and Us were studied and listed as follows, Hong Kong: "The by-product generated and removed from construction, renovation and demolition work places or sites and civil engineering structures." United States: Construction and demolition waste is waste material that is produced in the process of construction, renovation or demolition of structures. Structures include buildings of all types (both residential and non-residential) as well as road and bridges. Components of C&D waste typically include concrete, asphalt, wood, metals, gypsum wallboard, floor tile, and roofing. Land clearing waste, such as stumps, rocks and dirt are also included in some state definition of C&D waste. No big difference was found between the two definitions except the US one stated more on the composition of the C&D waste. For the generation source, Hong Kong is also no major difference with US, which has been listed as below, In United States: o Site clearance material o Excavated material o Roadwork material o New construction material o Renovation material o Demolition and Deconstruction o Disaster waste In Hong Kong o Site formation o Maintenance road o Building works o Demolition works o Building Renovation For the composition, the difference between US and Hong Kong is obviously.In US, the wood waste portion and asphalt waste portion is much more than Hong Kong which is result from the structure of the buildings. The details were discussed in the report. The C&D waste management system in Hong Kong have three key components including public filling, landfills and recovery & recycle industry. The public filling accepts 78.5% of the total C&D waste and the rest 21.5% will go to the municipal landfills. In Fig 2-8 and Fig 2-9, the existing landfills and public filling facilities were shown as well as other refuse transfer stations and barging points. In Hong Kong, only very small portion of the C&D waste will be recycled and most of them are ferrous or some other metals. In Hong Kong, the government also have taken some measures to control the C&D waste production including Non-decoration flat policy, On-site sorting requirements, Filling requirements, trip-ticket requirements etc. All these measurements were published through Work's Bureau Technical Circular or department internal guideline. These measures were considered quiet useful to reduce the C&D waste production and avoid illegal dumping. The institutional arrangement in Hong Kong regarding the C&D waste management is also investigated. The name and roles of these institutions were shown as the following, o Planning, Environmental and Land Bureau - Planner and Regulator o Works Bureau - Setting up the specification, requirements and guidelines o Civil Engineering Department - Operation of the existing public filling facilities and issue dumping licenses o Environmental Protection Department - Control the C&D waste that ended at the municipal landfill and operating a small sorting plant in SENT There are five key components in the C&D waste management system in US, they are C&D waste landfill, municipal landfill, recycle and re-use of the C&D waste, De-construction and Green Building.(1) C&D waste landfill is the landfill only accept the C&D waste with lower tipping fee and loser environmental requirement than the municipal landfills. (2) For municipal landfills and recycle and re-use, there are no major differences from Hong Kong. (3) In recent years, the concept "deconstruction" has became very popular in US. Deconstruction is a new expression to describe the process of selective dismantling or removal of materials from buildings before demolition. (4) For green building, it includes any attempt to construct or renovate buildings in an environmentally friendly manner The green building movement touches on the C&D world in that use of recycled and reused products that are an increasing important component of green home and offices. To control the C&D waste, the legal requirement and law provision is very important. Therefore, the legal and regulatory requirements on the C&D waste management field were also studied. In Hong Kong, there are three laws related to C&D waste including, o Waste Disposal Ordinance: Prohibit unauthorized disposal and issuing licenses o Crown Land Ordinance: Public Dumping Licenses o Dumping at Sea Ordinance: Stipulates permit requirements for permit for dumping at sea. In US, the following listed laws have some provisions related to the C&D waste management, o Subtitle D of RCRA - Foundation of the other laws o CFR Part 258 : Location Restriction for C&D Landfills, Closure of Existing Landfills Requirement, Ground- water Monitoring requirement and Record keeping o CFR Part 247 and 248: Specification requirements Specification is also one of the most important components in the C&D waste management system. In Hong Kong, several department's specification have some requirements on handling C&D waste as followings, o General Specification of Civil Engineering Work o General Condition of Contract for Civil Engineering Works o General Specification for Building Works o Draft Code of Practice for Demolition Buildings o Recommended Specification for on-site sorting o Hong Kong Housing Authorities General Specifications In these specifications, most of the requirements are same and the majority of them are listed as followings, o New Material Requirements - All the specs. o Site Clearance Requirements- All the specs. o Debris Disposal Requirements - Inert or Non-inert material - Technical Circular o Debris Recycling Requirements- In draft code of demolition works o On-site sorting requirement - In draft code of demolition works o Do not use rock crushing plant on site - only in Housing Authorities Spec. In US, the C&D waste requirement is specification is much more detailed than Hong Kong. The typical requirement in specification will include the followings, o Construction Waste Management Plan o Delivery Receipts o Quality Assurance Procedure - Pre-construction waste management meeting, Plan Revision Meeting o Site Requirements - Separate collection for each recyclable material o Recycle Requirements: Paper, Packaging, Metals, Plastic, Glass etc. After the literature review part, next section is case study. Two cases were studied in this section. One is the demolition project in Hong Kong and the other is the deconstruction project in United States. The detailed descriptions of these two projects are as follows. Hong Kong An oil company intends to re-development its site where an Liquid Petroleum Gas(LPG) station was located. The location of this LPG station compound is in Mei Foo Sun Chuen Phase 8 (A block plan is attached for your reference). This LPG compound is only accessible by vehicular traffic via a car park (Maurice, 1999). There are no adjoining buildings to the building to be demolished and no ground utilities across the site. Several buildings are located close to this site as follows; o Tower I - 3.0 meter from the building to be demolished o Tower II- 8.3 meter from the building to be demolished Tower I and II are a reinforced concrete frame buildings on pile foundations in good condition. The demolition works must not induce any adverse effect on the buildings. United States For the case study in US, the background information is as follows: The Riverdale Village deconstruction case study involved the manual disassembly and salvage of a 2,000 square foot building made up of four residential units. The building is part of a 27-acre, 600-unit housing development. The detailed cost of these two projects were investigated and the comparison were made. In US, even the dumping fee is very expensive, the contractor only spent less than 10% of the total cost to handle it. However, even the landfill is free of charge in Hong Kong, the dumping fee is more than 15% of the total cost. From this statistic data, we can see that the C&D waste production in US is much less than Hong Kong. At last, the recommendations were made to improve the C&D waste management. Following please find the summary, o Removal "new material" requirements from the specification o Prepare recycled material specification for highway and other civil works o Request contractor prepare Waste Reduction Plan before commence of the work. o Charge in landfills o Use the temporary structure buildings o Import the C&D waste recycling technology from other countries and build recycling plants at a proper location o Provide policy and financial assistant to establish the recycled material market in Hong Kong. |
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