ASSESSMENT of CURRENT SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN CONSTRUCTION BUILDING PROJECT in JIMMA TOWN, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Rapid growth in construction activities as a result of a growing population and urbanization in many parts of the world generates a large amount of waste from construction which is recognized as a major problem in many construction project and Construction waste generation has been identified as one of the major issues in the construction industry due to its direct impacts on the environment as well as the efficiency of the construction industry. Almost every time the construction and demolition waste end up settling in landfills disrupting the environmental, economic, and social life cycle. One of the effective ways to control construction waste is adoption of sustainable construction waste management practices and Sustainable construction waste management practices is one of focal point in many countries in the world and this study assesses the current sustainable waste management practices implemented in Ethiopia, the case of Jimma town, Data for the research was collected by using both primary and secondary sources, the main tools for the collection of data were questionnaires, interviews and site visit. The collected data was categorized and analyzed using SPSS software. From the result of study 17 contracting companies only 5(29.4%) among the surveyed contracting companies have specific strategies to manage the construction materials waste in building construction projects and they try to manage their wastes in sustainable way and the results from analysis of factors of waste generation ranked from the first to fifth position by contractors and consultants that the most significant factors causing construction waste on building construction projects are:- Materials handling and storage factors, Site management and practices factors, Design and documentation factors, Operations factors and Site supervision factors respectively.From factors affecting sustainable waste management practices during the progress of construction more stakeholders believe that construction material waste frequently happens mostly in materials handling and storage problem and due to poor Site management & practice.The results from analysis of impacts of poor implementation of sustainable waste management show that most of the respondent’s aware or mainly focused on the economical impacts of waste rather than environmental and social impacts and Most of them raised the impact of waste related to the cost due to wastage and few raised environmental impacts and social impacts. Contractors should prepare good handling and storing materials on site and should Preparing sustainable waste management plan to minimize the waste and the owners, consultants and contractors give more attention to environmental impact additionally to economic impacts.