Barriers to building and construction waste reduction, reuse and recycling : a case study of the Australian Capital Region

Abstract

Building and construction waste materials continue to be a major problem causing significant environmental impact worldwide. Broad university-industry collaborative research was undertaken in 2014 to identify the barriers, opportunities and strategies for reducing, reusing and recycling building and construction waste materials in the Australian Capital Region (located in the south-eastern corner of Australia and includes the Australian Capital Territory). This paper presents and discusses the results in relation to the barriers and possible strategies to overcome these barriers. To identify the barriers several workshops and interviews were undertaken. The workshop participants and interviewees were first provided a list of 12 barriers derived from review of relevant literature. They were then asked to think ‘outside of the box’ to identify any more barriers that were not captured in the list. Seven new barriers were identified, resulting in a total of 19 barriers. This research contributes to the field by identifying new barriers and providing corresponding strategies, which were developed together with frontline practitioners and managers. The overall outcomes have led to the development of the second stage of this collaborative research project.