Assessment of Building Construction Material Wastes: - A Case of Building Construction Projects in Sebeta Town

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