Development and evaluation of construction and demolition waste management framework in the context of Dhaka city

Abstract

This thesis looks over the current Construction and Demolition Waste Management (C&DWM) situations by scrutinizing the definition, classification, components, compositions, the generated sources and causes, the global scenario, impacts of generated Construction and Demolition Wastes (C&DWs), waste management hierarchy (WMH), 3R Principles, Circular Economy (CE), tools and frameworks of C&DWM. Dhaka city is witnessing rapid infrastructural development. Now, C&DW generation is becoming a burning issue due to its adverse impacts. This study reviews the present scenario of Dhaka city regarding the status of C&DW generation, approaches for minimizing C&DW generation, existing systems for managing C&DWs, existing relevant strategies, acts, and policies for C&DWM, and previous research on C&DWM. The review finds that landfilling, on-site and off-site disposal, and disposal in unauthorized places are the common strategies of C&DWM in Dhaka city that result in environmental pollution in the city as well as lessening the potential land spaces in the city. Moreover, the old landfill sites in Dhaka city are reaching their fullest capacity. The main objective of this study is to introduce a sustainable C&DWM framework for evaluating the C&DWM alternatives in Dhaka city by incorporating the application of expanded Waste Management Hierarchy (E-WMH) and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) models because these tools don’t get considerable attention in the C&DWM field of Bangladesh. This study considers the E-WMH principles as the alternatives for managing C&DWs in Dhaka city and selects and groups the criteria into social, economic, environmental, and technical criteria to achieve sustainability based on the comprehensive literature review and the Delphi survey with the subject-matter experts in Bangladesh. The ELECTRE I and ELECTRE II MCDA methods are employed in this study because these methods are suitable for solving environmental-related problems. Based on the results of ELECTRE I and ELECTRE II methods, reuse, recovery, and prevent are the suitable strategies, and incineration (burn), and treat and disposal are the poorest strategies for managing C&DWs in Dhaka city. Finally, this thesis provides some recommendations for C&DWM in Dhaka City to achieve greater efficiency in C&DWM and pinpoint some directions of the scope of future research in the field of C&DWM.