Towards the sustainable construction through minimizing site waste in Sri Lanka

The term ‘Sustainability’ is one of the critical issues that caused multiple repercussions in the global arena. The concept focuses economic, social and environment well being of a whole nation and there is an identical link between construction activities and the environment. Construction products and processes create considerable impact on the environment and it is significant to protect the environment for our future generations too. Construction site waste is one of the big issues that diminishes the environment soundness. Therefore minimization of site waste is becoming extremely attractive to management as a strategy to save costs while improving overall sustainability. The success in site waste reduction usually depends upon worker awareness and the commitment of the management. Most of the construction firms are not aware of waste minimization strategies at all. Therefore it is inevitable to suggest some ways or strategies for construction firms to reduce construction site waste. Identification of types and sources of waste would lead to suggesting ways and strategies to reduce construction site waste. Further, it was identified that poor performance of workers directly contributes to the generation of waste in construction. This paper is focused on how environment sustainability could be achieved through minimizing site waste and the factors that affected the generation of site waste in the Sri Lankan context. A comprehensive literature survey and a structured questionnaire survey were carried out to achieve the research aim of this study. Keywords - Construction Materials, Labour, Site Waste, Sri Lanka, Sustainable Construction