Deconstruction Project Planning Considering Local Environmental Impacts

Abstract

At present deconstruction project planning and related research focus mainly on economic issues including costs for equipment, workers and material disposal. Nevertheless, deconstruction of buildings can have major impacts on the local environment in terms of noise, dust and vibrations. Usually these environmental concerns are not included in deconstruction planning. But they can be harmful for humans, animals and the surrounding built environment. Analyses of different deconstruction techniques show major differences in noise, dust and vibrations. To use this potential to mitigate local environmental impacts, principals and deconstruction managers have to perform environmental conscious detailed deconstruction planning. In support of balancing these environmental issues with economic and technical aspects, a multi-criteria decision approach can help in the planning phase. In this paper a combination of the multi-criteria decision analysis methods Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT) is embedded in a system for the planning of deconstruction projects based on deconstruction techniques applied to single building components. The structure of this system is described in detail, encompassing the procedure of modelling the overall planning and decision making process as well as the application of the decision making logic. Expert knowledge and experimental noise, dust and vibration measurements related to different deconstruction techniques form the system database. The system is exemplarily applied to deconstruction planning of a small one-level building. Finally, its possible future practical implementation is addressed.

Implementing on-site construction waste recycling in Hong Kong: Barriers and facilitators

“…Similarly, Earle et al (2014) considered on-site recycling as a highly promising means of developing an economically viable waste recycling industry. However, some studies pointed out certain drawbacks of on-site recycling, such as the poor quality of recycled products produced due to limited availability of cleaning facilities as well as vulnerability to possible noise and dust pollution to residential areas nearby ( Ulubeyli et al, 2017 ; Kühlen et al, 2016 ). Overall, on-site C&D waste recycling has great potential while the drawbacks cannot be neglected.…”

Review of project planning methods for deconstruction projects of buildings

“…In strategic planning methods, other environmental criteria, such as impacts on the local environment, are partly qualitatively assessed. In operational planning, there is only one research approach (Kühlen et al , 2014) which quantitatively considers local environmental impacts of single deconstruction activities. In this regard, the focus is on local environmental impacts of noise, dust and vibrations.…”

“…Schultmann (1998) explains that the advantage of selective deconstruction is that many components or most material of the building can be re-used or recycled. In contrast to that, the re-use- or recycling-rate is much less when a building is demolished (Akbarnezhad et al , 2014; Kühlen et al , 2014; Schultmann, 1998). In this paper, the demolition of a building represents a special type of deconstruction.…”

“…Schultmann (1998) investigated existing methods for the deconstruction planning of buildings, but only considered six approaches of operational planning. A short, but not extensive review of strategic and operational project planning methods for deconstruction projects is provided by Xanthopoulos et al (2012) and Kühlen et al (2014). These research groups only provided a short description of some papers’ content, but did not analyse them in detail concerning several strategic and operational properties.…”

Encouraging Circular Waste Economies for the New Zealand Construction Industry: Opportunities and Barriers

“…This process considers buildings to be future resources for construction materials (Kibert et al, 2001); however, this endof-life consideration is not common. Many older buildings in Germany are not designed for deconstruction (Kuehlen et al, 2014). Likewise, in Japan many buildings contain composite structures or composite materials, making them difficult to dismantle (Nakajima, 2014).…”