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Smart management of waste from construction sites: mobile application technology in the city Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Construction and demolition waste (CDW) can be defined as a mixture of surplus materials
generated from construction, renovation and demolition activities, including site cleaning, road
works and demolition (Shen et al., 2004). Inadequate management of CDW, affects the
environment, the economy and society (Jin et al. 2019). Besides increasing construction costs
and real estate prices, CDW can have major negative impacts on the environment (Borja et al.,
2019), namely the contamination of soil and watercourses with heavy metals that can cause
diseases in the population and wild animals. These negative impacts are of major importance in
sensitive natural environments, justifying the relevance of this research in the city of Manaus, in
the central Amazon, Brazil. A previous study involved the quantification of CDW produced at 4
construction sites in the city of Manaus, and the costs involved in its management and disposal
(Oliveira et al., 2019). The results showed that high quantities of wood and paper waste are
produced, with considerable disposal costs, in spite of the high potential to recycle and re-use
these types of waste. Metal waste was found to be the only CDW that was being adequately
recycled in the construction sites under study, showing the importance of the implementation of
an organized system to collect and recycle CDW in the city of Manaus (Oliveira et al., 2019). A
similar case study conducted in the city of Santiago, capital of Chile, led to a quantification of
the CDW volume for further management improvement proposals (Bravo et al., 2019).
According to this study, in Santiago the generated volume of CDW per building area is 0.186
m3/m2, with a management cost of 75.47 US$/m3 (Bravo et al., 2019). These values are of the
same magnitude as the ones found in the research study conducted in Manaus (Oliveira et al.,
2019). Ogunmakinde et al. (2019) describe CDW management in Nigeria, highlighting the
existing corruption and unethical practices of large companies who prefer to dig and bury the
CDW in clandestine landfills, refusing to comply with environmental laws to avoid loss of profits.
This lack of social and environmental responsibility in construction companies is unfortunately
also a reality in Brazil. However, surveillance and monitoring of CDW production and disposal
may not be the solution to combat clandestine landfill, as demonstrated in the study of
Tsiliyannis et al. (2019), conducted in Athens, Greece. Environmental education and good
practice are the best weapons we have in environmental management, and adequate CDW
management requires a change in the behavior and attitude of each citizen (Mak et al., 2019).
The studies conducted in the present investigation sought to define the current model of CDW
management in the construction sites of the city of Manaus, its advantages and disadvantages,
in order to verify the possibility of implementing a Circular Economy system (Farooque et al.,
2019). This system could result in cost savings in civil construction and in the reduction of
negative environmental impacts caused by the illegal disposal in clandestine landfills, which
harms the lives of the citizens of the city of Manaus and the surrounding environment, the
Amazon rainforest itself. Circular Economy CDW management systems have already been
implemented in European cities (Fratini et al., 2019; Kravchenko et al., 2019), so why not
extend this practice to cities in Latin America, which are also affected by the environmental and
financial impacts of inadequate waste management on urban construction sites. In order to
implement a Circular Economy model, construction companies must be adequately involved in this system, for example through the promotion of sharing and renting equipment, customers
access and involvement, or the redesign of a product in order to make it more durable and
easier to reassemble if repair is needed (Kravchenko et al., 2019). Scientific initiatives to
develop new materials using CDW raw materials are very important for the sustainability of
CDW management, such as ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) which uses a fraction of
waste together with natural sand (Wang et al., 2019). Technological developments are of the
utmost importance in the process of improving environmental management in a Circular
Economy model: digital networks and robotics are increasingly inserted in the context of
environmental management, accompanying the development of the new “Industry 4.0” in the
manufacturing sector (Sarc et al., 2019). Although the Circular Economy model is not yet
implemented in Brazil, good practice initiatives are encouraged, as the one described in this
paper regarding CDW waste management in constructions sites in the city of Manaus through
the use of start-up technologies like mobile applications. These have an exponentially growing
market worldwide, demonstrated by the increasing use of mobile applications running on
smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices (Kaur & Kaur, 2019). The main
objective of this research is to enhance adequate environmental management in construction
sites through the development of a mobile application for CDW management. This tool can be
used by construction companies, waste disposal companies, and even urban citizens who need
to dispose construction waste.
Description
Keywords
Sustainable construction Smart waste disposal Startup company of waste
Citation
Oliveira, M. P. S. L.; Oliveira, E.A.; Wanderley, A.; Campos, A.M. L. S.; Fonseca, A. (2019). “Smart management of waste from construction sites: mobile application technology in the city Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil”. In: XIII International Conference on Virtual City and Territory: Challenges and Paradigms of the Contemporary City. Barcelona, Spain. CPSV, p. 8426. E-ISSN 2604-6512. DOI https://doi.org/10.5821/ctv.8426