TOPIC: ISSUES IN CONSTRUCTION WASTES IN SELANGOR, MALAYSIA

Nurul Amalina Binti Ismail (2015165591)

Siti Nur Zarina Binti Mohamad (2015106195)

1. BACKGROUND OF RESEARCH

Construction industry plays a key role in socio-economic development of any

country. Nowadays construction industry is rapidly growing because of increase in standard
of living, demands of infrastructure projects, changes in consumption habits, as well as
natural increase in population. (Nagapan, Rahman, Asmi, Memon, & Latif, 2012).

Unfortunately, while meeting the needs of the present developments a lot of harmful
and negative impact on the ecosystem of the environment were occurs. Waste management in
the building industry in Malaysia has become a major environmental issue in recent years.
Malaysian greater concern is the increasing amount of construction and demolition waste. In
Malaysia, disposal of solid waste onto lands or landfill is still the most common method.
(Nagapan, Abdul, Asmi, & Fadhilah, 2013)

In most parts of the world, the construction industry consumes a huge amount of
natural resources and generates large quantities of construction waste. Construction waste, or
construction and demolition (C&D) waste, is generally defined as a mixture of inert and non-
inert materials arising from construction, excavation, renovation, demolition, roadwork and
other construction-related activities. The inert materials comprise soft inert materials such as
soil, earth and slurry, and hard inert materials such as rocks and broken concrete. The non-
inert materials include wastes such as metals, timber, plastics and packaging wastes. (Poon,
2007)

Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization coupled with ever increasing

population growth have led to an increase in solid wastes in most developing countries. The
wastes generated from various human activities, both industrial and domestic, can result in
health hazards and have a negative impact on the environment. In Peninsular Malaysia, the
amount of solid waste generated per day increased from an estimated 23, 000 tonnes in 2010
to 25, 000 tonnes in 2012, averaging about 0.9 kilograms per person per day. Solid waste in
Malaysia on average consists of 45.0 per cent food waste, 24.0 per cent plastic, 7.0 per cent

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paper, 6.0 per cent iron, and 3.0 per cent glass and others. (Abu Eusuf, Ibrahim, & Islam,
2012)

Construction Managers have to deal with many factors that may negatively affect the
construction process, producing different types of wastes. There are several causes of
material wastes which in most cases are dependent on the type of construction methods
employed, the specific materials in use, and/or the stage of the construction itself. Waste can
be generated by mistakes, working out of sequence, redundant activity and movement,
delayed or premature inputs and products or services that do not meet customer needs.
(Dania, Kehinde, & Bala, 2007)

Basically, construction project has three main waste minimization practices; avoiding
waste, reusing materials and recycling waste. Avoiding waste refers to any practice or
process that avoids, eliminates or minimizes waste at source. In addition, avoiding waste is
also referred to as minimization of waste at source. Followed by reusing and recycling waste
which refers to the re-using and recycling of waste materials, whereby reducing the volume
of waste material to be disposed of and discharged into the environment. (Ahmad et al.,
2014)

2. RESEARCH PROBLEM
Rapid growth in construction industry has increased the problems of construction
waste around the world. In Malaysia, the construction industry plays a significant role
both in the infrastructure development and economic sectors. The construction industry is
been regarded as one of the major contributors of negative impact to the environment.
(Nagapan et al., 2013).
There are numerous research works carried out on construction waste and the
findings show several negative impacts to the environment, social and economy of a
country. These impacts also contribute to a reduction in construction productivity and
thus reduce the performance of the overall construction project. (Nagapan et al., 2012).
The wastes generated from various human activities, both industrial and domestic,
can result in health hazards and have a negative impact on the environment.(Abu Eusuf et
al., 2012). Due to the overwhelming production of the wastes, the conventional method in

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 handling construction solid waste seems to be irrelevant in ensuring sustainability for the
waste management in the future. (Jensen, Leonard, & Hyatt, 1993)

3. RESEARCH AIM
The purpose of the study is to reduce construction waste on site in Selangor, Malaysia.

4. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
1) To determine main source of construction waste
2) To explore on how to reduce the construction waste
3) To make a recommendation on reducing the construction waste

5. RESEARCH QUESTION
1) What the main source of construction waste?
2) How to reduce the construction waste?
3) What the recommendation on reducing the construction waste?

6. SCOPE OF LIMITATION RESEARCH

This study basically concentrates on the construction waste. This research only
scopes down to on sites in Selangor, Malaysia due the immense location of construction
and development sites.

7. SIGNIFICANT OF RESEARCH
This findings of this study is understanding the main source of construction
because the quantity of construction waste production are increasing in Malaysia. This
problem can be attributed to the parties that have to concerned about controlling the
construction waste at the construction site, the parties involved to control this issue are
contractors, clients, and local authorities. Furthermore, there also have another method to
reducing construction using besides waste disposal method such as 3R, reduce, reuse, and
recycle to contribute the waste construction. The contribution of waste construction
should done by contractors at site waste to maintaining the environment at the

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 construction site. In addition, it can reduces the construction cost such as using the
recycle material.

8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
8.1 Introduction

The source of data we will collected is conducted from site visit to survey the
construction waste and obtain accurate information and the secondary data we used is
from the book, journals, articles, reports, thesis and websites that have data related to this
study.

8.2 Site visit

Site visit are is the one comprises of the approaches used in order to collect the
information for this research. This method is to get as much data as possible while survey
the current surroundings that have a problem at the construction site that been choosen in
Selangor area.

8.3 Secondary data

The secondary data method is a method collected through books, journals,

articles, reports, thesis and websites is to collect data that has previously been studied
about construction waste. This method can reinforce the evidence of the problems
encountered at the construction waste before.

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 9. REFERENCES

Abu Eusuf, M., Ibrahim, M., & Islam, R. (2012). the Construction and Demolition Wastes in
Klang Valley, Malaysia. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol.1(1), pp 225-231.
https://doi.org/10.5592/otmcj.2013.1.5

Ahmad, A. C., Husin, N. I., Zainol, H., Tharim, A. H. A., Ismail, N. A., & Wahid, A. M. A.
(2014). The Construction Solid Waste Minimization Practices among Malaysian
Contractors. MATEC Web of Conferences 15, 7(September), 1–9.
https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/20141501037

Dania, A. A., Kehinde, J. O., & Bala, K. (2007). Study of Construction Material Waste
Management Practices By Construction Firms in Nigeria. Proceedings of the 3rd Scottish
Conference for Postgraduate Researchers of the Built and Natural Environment, Glasgow,
121–129.

Jensen, T. H., Leonard, A. W., & Hyatt, A. W. (1993). W = Z, 921869784(September 1992),

1239–1247.

Nagapan, S., Abdul, I., Asmi, A., & Fadhilah, N. (2013). Study of Site’s Construction Waste in
Batu Pahat, Johor. Procedia Engineering, 53, 99–103.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2013.02.015

Nagapan, S., Rahman, I. A., Asmi, A., Memon, A. H., & Latif, I. (2012). Issues on construction
waste: The need for sustainable waste management. In CHUSER 2012 - 2012 IEEE
Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CHUSER.2012.6504333

Poon, C. S. (2007). Reducing construction waste. Waste Management, 27(12), 1715–1716.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2007.08.013