Refurbishment generates many types of waste materials
- shortage, lack of experience of skilled workers,
and careless working attitudes and behaviours,
are the most dominant influencing factors in waste
generation. Most of the main and sub-contractors
gave this the highest value and agreed that this
category is one of the main influencing factors of
waste generated during the refurbishment process.
In many situations, based on the rank result, most of
the overall influencing factors are derived from the
attitudes and behaviours of the worker towards poor
work practices and non-practicing of on-site waste
management.
Conclusion
Refurbishment can be described as the process
of changing, upgrading and extending the use
of existing buildings through the adaptation of
their primary forms to provide a new or updated
version on the original structure. Moreover, this
sector is considered a labour-intensive industry.
The effective management and reduction of waste
from construction depends on co-operation,
attitudes, and behaviour of the people involved in
the construction process. Based on the findings,
it can be seen that the two primary causes of the
on-site generation of refurbishment waste are
mainly due to the human resource factors such
as inexperienced and the unskilled workers. Thus,
this study suggests that by having:
● well-trained workers with proper awareness
of waste management,
● incentives offered by the employer,
● sufficient knowledge and expertise of
contractors,
● frequent monitoring by the site supervisors,
● implementation of an effective waste
management plan, and
● effective communications between the
owner and the contractors,
could change the bad culture influencing the
listed factors and would support the reduction
of refurbishment waste generated on-site when
undertaking future construction projects.
Acknowledgement
We would like to express our gratitude to the
Faculties of Science and Engineering, University
of Malaya for providing us with the relevant
literature, data and information in publishing
this paper. Additional technical support, advice
and guidance were provided by The Construction
Research Institute of Malaysia (CREAM) and
the Construction Industry Development Board
of Malaysia (CIDB). Finally, to the Environmental
Preservation and Innovation Centre Sdn Bhd
(EPIC) for the financial support provided to carry
out the publishing of this article.
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