Rosado, Lais Peixoto (2019) Life cycle assessment of construction and demolition waste management in a Brazilian watershed. PhD thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.
Abstract
In the context of solid waste management, the construction and demolition waste (C&DW) represents one of the greatest challenges for the public authorities, mainly due to the large volume and high generation rates, especially in medium and large-sized municipalities. C&DW has high potential for reuse and recycling, however, such practices are incipient in Brazil; therefore, the final disposal in landfill consists the main management alternative adopted by the municipalities. In this context, this study evaluated the environmental performance of the C&DW management in the area of Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí Watershed, located in the São Paulo State, Brazil, by means of an attributional Life Cycle Assessment. The entire C&DW management under the responsibility of the municipal government was considered. The potential environmental impacts were assessed by using two specific life cycle impact assessment methodologies, CML baseline (v3.03) and Impact 2002+ (v2.12). The results obtained by both methodologies highlighted the importance of the avoided impacts from recovered materials, mainly those related to steel, glass and plastics recycling. In particular, the CML baseline indicated “Human Toxicity” as the most important category, mainly due to the avoided impacts from steel recycling and the generated impacts from transportation in all the C&DW management stages. The Impact 2002+ highlighted instead the role of the categories of “Respiratory Inorganics” and “Global Warming”, in accordance with the results related again to steel recycling and transportation but also to landfilling of solid residues. In the interpretation, the sensitivity analysis consisted of the evaluation of alternative scenarios for the mineral fraction management and, in the analysis of the effect of the variation of some parameters, such as the transportation, C&DW composition and landfill modelling. The results highlighted the environmental advantages of increasing recycling rates along with improving the quality of recycled aggregates and, revealed that variations in the C&DW composition may significantly affect the results, which suggests that the control of the waste stream is fundamental to determine the environmental profile of the C&DW management system.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Penteado, Carmenlucia Santos Giordano |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction and demolition waste; life cycle assessment; mineral fraction; recycling; management |
| Index terms: | recycled aggregate, municipality, landfill, methodology, variation, stream, waste management, environmental impact, Brazil, life cycle assessment, construction and demolition, global warming, public authority, sensitivity analysis, management system, solid waste management, modelling, recycling, plastic, life cycle impact assessment, environmental performance, municipal government |
| Subjects: | administrative law, management, contractual condition, water management, analytical methods, climate science, materials science, waste management, environmental impact, environmental hazards, research methods, sustainability assessment, Geography, health safety and environment |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Contract Administration, Organizational Design, Sustainability, Geographical Context, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Legal Issues |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here