Components reuse in the building sector – A systematic review

Abstract

Widespread reuse of building components can promote the circularity of materials in the building sector. However, the reuse of building components is not yet a mainstream practise. Although there have been several studies on the factors affecting the reuse of building components, there is no single study that has tried to harmonize the circumstances affecting this intervention. Through a systematic literature review targeting peer-reviewed journal articles, this study intends to identify and stratify factors affecting the reuse of components of the superstructure of a building and eventually delineate correlations between these factors. Factors identified throughout this study are classified into six major categories and 23 sub-categories. Then the inter-dependencies between the barriers are studied by developing the correlation indices between the sub-categories. Results indicate that addressing the economic, social and regulatory barriers should be prioritized. Although the impact of barriers under perception, risk, compliance and market subcategories are very pronounced, the highest inter-dependency among the sub-categories is found between perception and risk. It suggests that the perception of the stakeholders about building components reuse is affected by the potential risks associated with this intervention.

Quality assurance in reverse logistics supply chain of demolition waste: A systematic literature review

“…According to Rakhshan et al (2020), Tam and Lu (2016) and Yuan and Shen (2011), Australia, Hong Kong, UK and China are among the topmost countries dedicated to research on CDW management. It is worth highlighting that only one article has been extracted from the USA, which is also a main contributing country to the research on CDW management (Rakhshan et al, 2020; Yuan and Shen, 2011). This emphasises that although the USA has done more research in the domain on CDW management, those studies are not explicitly addressing the quality issues in reprocessed products.…”

“…Similarly, the previous SLR studies also endeavoured in extracting articles from dispersed locations to strengthen their review by enabling a robust descriptive and content analysis (e.g. Benachio et al, 2020; Rakhshan et al, 2020).…”

Decision Framework to Balance Environmental, Technical, Logistical, and Economic Criteria When Designing Structures With Reused Components

“…Consequently, the structure environmental impact is employed as a first evaluation criterion. The economic viability of the project is another point of consideration when making decisions on the reuse of components (Rakhshan et al, 2020). Project costs are therefore employed as a second evaluation criterion.…”

“…Regarding impacts of reuse on construction projects, the associated consequences have been described extensively and are of economic, technical, environmental, organizational and design nature (Gorgolewski and Morettin, 2009;Gorgolewski, 2011;Rakhshan et al, 2020). Today, partial and fragmented knowledge about the impacts of structural components does exist but no study has addressed all of these multiple and diverse factors when designing structures with reused elements.…”

Strategies for a Circular Economy in the Construction and Demolition Sector: Identifying the Factors Affecting the Recommendation of Recycled Concrete

“…To design interventions aimed at promoting behavioural change, it is pivotal to understand the agents' decision-making processes for choosing construction materials, and all of the factors that may foster or hinder the adoption of more sustainable alternatives. In fact, a growing interest in the social dimension of the transition towards a sustainable/circular C&D sector and in the role of agents has emerged, putting human needs, motivations, values, preferences and behaviour at the centre of system change [37][38][39][40]. Key concerns about concrete recycling are related to economic factors, policies and strategies, government support, certification of recycled materials, clear quality standards, planning of demolition projects, the availability of suitably-located recycling facilities, the cheap cost of landfill disposal as an alternative to recycling, and, most importantly, education and information [35,41,42].…”