Abstract:
The construction material wastes include both the incidence of material losses and the
execution of unnecessary works. These construction material wastes influences the project to
consume additional material, costs and, produces losing of valuable land through filling with
material wastes. Hence this research is aimed to investigate as well as ranked the material
wastes causes, material waste minimization techniques and the possible critical actions for
successfully minimizing construction material wastes in Sebeta town construction projects. The
study uses both primary and secondary data and the research has covered a population of
building construction which was under construction. The random sampling techniques were used
for data collection. The data were analyzed and presented by using statistical package for social
sciences (SPSS) and, ranked depending on the Relative Importance Index (RII) values. The
questionnaires were designed, for causes of material wastes, for material waste minimization
techniques implementation and for possible critical action needs for material waste control. As
the result revealed that the major causes of material wastes are in the following orders: errors in
contract documents (RII=0.846), complexities in design (RII=0.808), in correct quantity
estimation (RII=0.814),over allowance RII=0.802). Others like, reusing concrete wastes for
further work (RII=0.634) and, using concurrent engineering (RII=0.651) are those waste
minimization techniques that are well employed within the project firms. However, design for
standard material supplies (RII=0.500), using synergistic contractual arrangements for waste
(RII=0.493), are those waste minimization techniques that are not well employed within the
project firms. There is the availability of material wastes and, the efforts of project firms for
focusing on construction waste minimization techniques were low. The construction project
stakeholders should use material waste minimization specification and, low-waste technologies
for construction material waste minimization and, should use synergistic contractual
arrangements in contract documents for material waste minimization
