Abstract

The Construction industry in Nigeria is one of the active sectors of the economy with increasing project activities. The nucleus of these activities includes the construction of new infrastructures to meet the need of the country’s growing population of over 200 million people. Consequently, the construction industry generates significant amount of waste arising from its attendant construction and demolition activities. Unfortunately, large proportion of these construction and demolition waste ends up on dumpsites and in landfills. This study therefore aims at examining the management practices of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) on construction sites in Lagos. The study adopted a qualitative research approach for data collection through snowballing sampling technique. Ten (10) interview sessions were conducted. The interviewees were project managers of multi-million naira residential and commercial projects in Lagos state. The interview sessions were recorded through a recording device, transcribed and then analysed thematically through Microsoft excel package. The results showed that construction and demolition waste are predominantly generated from the inception of the construction project and as the construction project progresses, with elemental constituent of wood (34%), mortar (13%) and concrete (9%), reinforcement (9%), and rubbles (9%). Furthermore, in management of these waste, concrete was reused as backfill (levelling), reinforcement bars were dumped at a corner on the site for further actions, then sorted on site for reusing while those that could not be reused were sold as scrap or taken to the factory for recycling. Wood waste were also dumped at a corner on the site for further actions, then sorted on site for reusing and thereafter, sold as scrap. Rubbles were reused as hardcore while other waste were handpicked, sometimes burnt or mostly taken by LAWMA to landfill (dumpsites). In addition, sustainable practices mostly adopted on sites were onsite sorting, reuse, reselling and reduce (proper storage and handling of materials). This study therefore recommends that workers should be educated on sustainable use of materials on sites, the sustainable practice of onsite sorting, reuse, resell, and waste generation reduction should be practiced more often on site towards wasted reduction, cost savings, efficient project delivery and accident free on construction projects and contractors should an arrangement of dedicated, effective and efficient construction waste management agency to cart away construction waste remnants from the site for recycling.

Copyright of the paper named above is hereby assigned and transferred to the Nigerian Journal of Applied Science and Innovative Technology published by College of Engineering, Bells University of Technology, Nigeria.