Waste management practices of real estate firms
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Date
2021-06-29
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Abstract
Waste management remain a serious challenge globally, with huge sums of money spent
towards managing waste across the globe. Available statistics indicate that local governments
in Africa are currently spending about US$15 billion per year on urban solid waste
management. This substantiate the need for effective waste management practices among the
real estate firms, since it is anticipated that, by 2025 the spending on solid waste management
activities would have increased by 200 per cent. The study specifically looked at the
significant waste management practices adopted by real estate firms and the challenges and
problems local real estate firms face on construction waste management practices. To achieve
these objectives, the researcher adopted the mixed method survey design approach and
research questionnaire as data collection instrument. A sample of thirty (30) respondents were
sampled across thirty (30) real estate development firms in the greater Accra region using
non-probability (Judgmental sampling) sampling technique. Findings from the study revealed
that, Waste Re-use is the significant waste management practice among real estate developers
ranked first (1st) with a mean score of 4.38, this followed by Waste recycling with a mean
score of 4.22. The least ranked waste management practice was however, Waste disposal with
a mean score of 3.12. On the waste management practice used locally by real estate firms,
findings revealed that most of the real estate developers in the Greater Accra region uses
Waste Re-use, followed by waste recycling, and waste disposal with waste minimization being
the least waste management practice used among real estate developers. Finally, on the
challenges and problems of waste management practices, findings revealed that, the major
challenges faced in waste management practice is inability of EPA to fully discharge their
supervisory role to ensure that certain principles are adhered to in waste management and to
provide waste management policy. It was followed by high cost of waste management and
inadequate skilled labor on waste management which attained 60% endorsement from the
respondents leaving lack of commitment on the part of project management to be last with
53.3% of agreement level by respondents. Based on these findings the researcher
recommends, it is recommended that the EPA provides a Waste Management Plan or policy
and to monitor to ensure that construction industry players adhered to best practices
Description
A thesis Submitted to the Department of Construction, Technology and Management,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfilment of
requirements for the Award Degree of
Master of Science in Construction Management.
Keywords
Disposal, Demolition, Recycling, Waste