Major factors affecting waste generation on construction sites in Iran

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste account for a large share of total solid waste sent to the environment. As a result, effective C&D waste management has been treated as one of the available avenues towards sustainable development. Yet, C&D waste management within the Iranian construction industry has been literally overlooked by investigators. As one of the first studies in Iran, the main causes of generating C&D waste on construction projects have been identified through a review of literature. Afterwards, the list has been subjected to the scrutiny of 101 experts in the field deploying a questionnaire survey. The findings revealed that important causes of C&D waste generation on construction sites were all associated with lack of skills and experience of construction workers and lack of awareness of the concept of waste and values of construction materials. No discrepancy in terms of causes of waste generation was observed among different tiers of construction companies in the Iranian construction industry. The paper concludes with providing a number of guidelines to address the issues as identified for Iran and other developing countries suffering from the same problems.