Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654

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Waste Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

Environmental performance of construction waste: Comparing three scenarios

from a case study in Catalonia, Spain
O. Ortiz a,b,*, J.C. Pasqualino a, F. Castells a
a
Rovira i Virgili University, Environmental Analysis and Management Group (AGA), Chemical Engineering Department, Av. Països Catalans 26, 43007, Tarragona, Spain
b
University of Pamplona, Department of Industrial Engineering, Km 1 Vía Bucaramanga, Pamplona, N de S, Colombia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The main objective of this paper is to evaluate environmental impacts of construction wastes in terms of
Accepted 11 November 2009 the LIFE 98 ENV/E/351 project. Construction wastes are classified in accordance with the Life Program
Available online 14 December 2009 Environment Directive of the European Commission. Three different scenarios to current waste manage-
ment from a case study in Catalonia (Spain) have been compared: landfilling, recycling and incineration,
and these scenarios were evaluated by means of Life Cycle Assessment. The recommendations of the Cat-
alan Waste Catalogue and the European Waste Catalogue have been taken into account. Also, the influ-
ence of transport has been evaluated.
Results show that in terms of the Global Warming Potential, the most environmentally friendly treat-
ment was recycling, followed by incineration and lastly landfilling. According to the influence of treat-
ment plants location on the GWP indicator, we observe that incineration and recycling of construction
wastes are better than landfilling, even for long distances from the building site to the plants. This is true
for most wastes except for the stony types, than should be recycled close to the building site.
In summary, data from construction waste of a Catalan case study was evaluated using the well estab-
lished method of LCA to determine the environmental impacts.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
By comprehensively reviewing existing literature in Spain from
a whole building life cycle perspective, the phase with the highest
environmental impact is the use phase with approximately 90% of
the life cycle’s total, while the construction phase accounted for a
total of 8% and the dismantling phase represented about less than
2% (Ortiz et al., 2009a). Nevertheless, even if the contribution of the
construction phase is low compared with values of the whole life
cycle, this phase cannot be neglected because of the negative envi-
ronmental impacts on the environment due to the excessive con-
sumption of building materials, water consumption and the
improper waste management.
Regarding to the waste management, within the European Un-
ion, more than 450 million tonnes per year of construction and
demolition waste is generated, this being the largest waste stream
in quantitative terms, apart from mining and farm wastes (EC,
2000). For instance, in many countries, the large volumes of con-
struction and demolition wastes have put a strain on landfill capac-
ities and have led to environmental concerns (Esin and Cosgun,
* Corresponding author. Address: University of Pamplona, Department of Indus-
trial Engineering, Km 1 Vía Bucaramanga, Pamplona, N de S, Colombia. Tel.: +34 977
558553; fax: +34 977 559621.
E-mail address: oscarortiz@unipamplona.edu.co (O. Ortiz).
2007). However, construction waste has a very high recovery po-
tential as 80% of this waste can be recycled, although only a small
proportion is actually recovered in the European Union as a whole.
Currently, 75% of waste is being landfilled, although 80% recycling
rates have been achieved in countries such as Denmark, the Neth-
erlands and Belgium (Erlandsson and Levin, 2005).
In Spain, about 40 million tonnes of waste are produced every
year, representing 32% of the total volume of waste generated. Be-
cause of the magnitude of this ratio, the Spanish government
would like to recycle or reuse 40% of the total waste generated.
In Catalonia (Spain) in 2003, 6.3 million tonnes (approximately
1000 kg/inhabitant) of construction waste was recovered at ap-
proved recovery plants, transfer plants and warehouses (ARC,
2006). Most of these wastes are currently disposed of in landfills,
thus occupying a volume which clearly exceeds that occupied by
domestic wastes. However, better alternatives have already been
adopted such as reusing, recycling and reducing waste generation
by controlling aspects such as design quality, applied technology
and habitual construction methods (Rodriguez et al., 2007).
Other waste management methods, such as incineration with
energy recovery (whenever possible), seem to be appropriate op-
tions, whereas landfills are only considered as a last alternative.
Nevertheless, incineration involves processes such as sintering
which continue to generate ash, residuals, non-combustibles and
other elements which must be safely landfilled due to their toxic
potential (IJC-IAQAB, 1996).

0956-053X/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2009.11.013
 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654
Directives and legislation have been drawn up globally and lo-
cally to reduce and manage wastes. In this respect, the European
Union has also published directives and legislations for waste man-
agement. For example, the Directive 2006/12/EC was created by
the European Parliament to push for improvements related to the
production and management of waste. This policy encouraged the
use of strategies such as recycling, recovery or any other action to
obtain secondary raw materials, as well as promoting the use of
waste as an energy source (EP, 2006).
Locally, in Catalonia the management of waste follows Euro-
pean Union guidelines which prioritize waste reduction and evalu-
ation. For instance, the project LIFE98 ENV/E/351 is aimed at
increasing environmental awareness in the construction industry,
particularly in terms of controlling and reducing the heteroge-
neous composition of the waste generated, both in manufacturing
(construction and rehabilitation of buildings) and demolition (iTEC,
2000).
With the possible exception of prevention, there are potential
environmental impacts regarding previous directive for waste
management. Then, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is
one of the current well established methods to provide solid waste
planners and decision makers with an excellent framework to eval-
uate Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management strategies (Ober-
steiner et al., 2007). According to Birgisdottir (2004), the broad
perspective of LCA makes it possible to take into account the signif-
icant environmental benefits that can be obtained through differ-
ent waste management processes:
 Waste incineration with energy recovery reduces the need for
other energy sources.
 Material from recycling processes replaces production of virgin
material.
 Residues from waste incineration may replace gravel at road
constructions.
There has been a fair amount of research into the generation
and management of construction wastes (Poon et al., 2002; Al-
Mutairi and Haque, 2003; Begum et al., 2007). In Spain, Solís-Guz-
mán et al. (2009) analyzed, with the Alcores model, the waste vol-
ume that is expected to be generated on the building site in both
new construction and demolition dwelling projects. So far, only
limited research has been published from the point of view of envi-
ronmental impacts, although some of the first attempts using life
cycle waste management perspective have started to appear dur-
ing the last five years (Banar et al., 2009; Berkhout and Howes,
1997; Manfredi and Christensen, 2009; Wittmaier et al., 2009).
Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to evaluate envi-
ronmental impacts of construction waste in terms of the LIFE98
ENV/E/351 project. Three different scenarios to current waste man-
agement from a case study in Catalonia, Spain have been com-
pared: landfilling, recycling and incineration, and these scenarios
were evaluated by means of LCA.
2. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology
LCA is an environmental methodology for evaluating the im-
pacts of a product or process from its origin to its final disposal (Or-
tiz et al., 2009b). The broad system perspective makes LCA a
powerful tool for environmental comparison of different options
for waste management of a specific product, a material, or a com-
plex waste flow. Because of this, LCA has gained in acceptance as a
tool for waste management planning and policy-making (Ekvall
et al., 2007).
LCA follows the international series standard of ISO 14040,
which is based on four stages: defining the goal and scope, analyz-
647
ing the inventory, assessing the impact and interpreting the results
(ISO, 2006).
2.1. Defining the goal and scope
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the environmen-
tal impact of construction waste taking into account the LIFE 98
ENV/E351 project. The functional unit is defined as the total waste
of 2.06E+02 kg m 2 of constructed area corresponding from the
process of carrying out construction work, both new works and
renovation and repairs. Three scenarios: landfilling, recycling and
incineration, representing the possible options of waste manage-
ment in Barcelona have been considered.
2.1.1. Landfilling
This includes the dump infrastructure, the use of land and the
effect of the landfilled waste (leachate). Construction wastes that
are to be landfilled are special wastes disposed of in underground
deposits or controlled landfills, inert wastes are disposed of in inert
material landfills and non-special wastes are disposed of in land-
fills or sanitary landfills. In this scenario, all the wastes are dis-
posed of in landfill. Furthermore, this scenario considers the
emissions to the soil, air and groundwater related to the disposal
of wastes in sanitary landfills, inert material landfills and hazard-
ous waste landfills.
2.1.2. Recycling
This takes into account the plant infrastructure, recycling pro-
cess, products obtained and wastes generated. This scenario con-
siders the sorting and recycling processes and their transport
and, the material saved as a result of recycling. In this scenario
all recyclable wastes are sent to a recycling plant, non-recyclable
wastes are sent to an incineration plant and non-recyclable or
non-incinerable wastes are sent to landfill. This scenario gives po-
sitive and negative values. Positive values mean emissions to the
environment whereas negative values represent a credit corre-
sponding to the fact that these recovered materials would actually
displace virgin materials.
2.1.3. Incineration
In this scenario, incinerable wastes are disposed of at an incin-
eration plant and non-incinerable wastes are disposed of in land-
fill. This covers the plant infrastructure, the incineration process,
the electricity generated and the disposal of ashes. Electrical en-
ergy recovery (calculated from calorific value data) and the amount
of residual ashes (which are disposed by landfill) are also consid-
ered. This scenario also includes the additional process of trans-
porting the slag and residues of the incineration process to
landfill. Incineration generated significant power and thermal en-
ergy because the high calorific value of the construction materials
wastes, thus placing the incineration process in credit in terms of
its environmental impact. Here negative values represent a credit
obtained from the power and thermal energy recovery generated
by burning the highly calorific construction material wastes.
Fig. 1 presents the scheme for assessing a waste management
system using the life cycle approach from construction waste,
detailing the stages considered within this study.
2.2. Inventory analysis
For the inventory analysis, data were taken from the LIFE98
ENV/E/351 project. Table 1 shows the overview of the construction
waste inventory. Waste is classified according to the source corre-
sponding into two main groups; one corresponding to the waste
generated from the construction process itself as a result of surplus
materials, such as concrete, mortar, ceramic tile etc.; and the other
648 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654

Fig. 1. System boundaries for the case study analyzed of the wastes from construction.

Table 1 tion has been done in accordance with the Life Program Environ-
Inventory analysis from construction processes for the construction and building ment Directive of the European Commission (iTEC, 2000). For the
wastes. three final deposition of waste in the scenarios described above,
LIFE98/351 project: waste Weight the recommendations of the Catalan Waste Catalogue (ARC,
from construction process (kg m 2) 2006) and the European Waste Catalogue (EC, 2002) have been ta-
Code Stone ken into account.
170101 Concrete 1.09E+02 Finally, Table 2 describes the type of construction waste, the
170102 Brick 5.43E+01 collection rate and the scenarios under study.
170103 Ceramics 3.19E+00 The Ecoinvent V2.01 (2007) database (SCLCI, 2007) was used to
170802 Building materials different to 1.47E+01
170801
obtain the inventory data of the processes involved in the study. As
the database inventories have been developed for Swiss technolo-
Code Metals
170401 Cooper, bronze 8.36E 01
gies, and in order to adapt them to the Spanish situation, the fol-
170402 Aluminum 7.82E 01 lowing assumptions have been made:
170405 Iron and steel 8.84E+00
Code Timber  The Swiss energetic mix of the processes was adapted to the
170201 Timber 3.08E+00 Spanish electrical mix.
Code Plastic  The transport process was adapted from the Swiss transport sys-
170203 Plastic 3.92E+00 tem to the European transport system.
Code Others  The location of the origin of waste is assumed to be situated at
170604 Insulation materials different 4.10E 02 the city centre.
of 170601 and 170603.
LIFE98/351 project: waste from packaging material
Code Timber 2.3. Impact assessment
170201 Timber 4.17E + 00
Code Plastic Environmental impact was assessed using LCAManager, an
170203 Plastic 1.13E + 00 environmental management tool developed by SIMPPLE SL. The
Code Paper and Cardboard CML 2 baseline 2000 methodology (CML, 2001) was used to evalu-
150101 Paper and cardboard 1.90E + 00 ate the environmental profile, with the following indicators being
Total construction process plus packaging materials 2.06E+02
considered:

 AP – Acidification Potential (kg SO2 eq).

to the waste originated from the packaging arriving on site, wood,
paper, plastics, etc. We have classified the first waste into five
groups: stone, metals, timber, plastic, and others construction
waste. The packaging materials have been classified into three
groups: timber, plastic, and paper and cardboard. This classifica-
 GWP – Global Warming Potential (kg CO2 eq).
 EP – Eutrophication (kg NOx eq).
 FAETP – Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq).
 HTTP – Human Toxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq).
 TTP – Terrestrial ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq).

Table 2
Overview of the waste management and scenarios.

Type of construction Collection Scenario, Catalan plant and distance from the origin of waste to the plant in km
waste rate
Landfilling Recycling Incineration
Stone 70–80% Construction wastes controlled landfill Gelabert SA – Services and Maintenance Non-incinerable
(5.6 km) (7.9 km)
Metals 90% Cespa SA – Waste Management (28.1 km) Femarec SCCL (6.2 km)
Plastic 80% Uniland SA Cement Plant
(38.2 km)
Paper and Cardboard 80%
Wood 80% Cespa SA – Waste Management (28.1 km)
Others (unspecific) Variable
 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654 649

In addition to these environmental indicators, we have evalu-
ated other eco-efficiency indicators. These indicators have been
considered for general and also for specific audiences working in
the building sector, reflecting the results in a clear and easy way
for non-environmental expert users, including:
 RU – Resources use (kg): Use of resources, except for water, fuels
and other energy sources, from the solid waste generation to the
end-of-life scenario.
 RE – Renewable energy (MJ): MJ from solar, wind, hydraulic and
biomass energy consumed from the solid waste generation to
the end-of-life scenario.
 NRE – Non-renewable energy (MJ): MJ due to geothermic,
nuclear, petroleum, coal and natural gas energy, used from the
solid waste generation to the end-of-life scenario.
 WU – Overall water use (m3): Water use from different sources
from the solid waste generation to the end-of-life scenario.
3. Results and discussion
site. For most of the environmental categories calculated, stone
waste is the mayor contributor to the impact of the construction
process wastes landfilling, followed by the metals, plastics, timber,
and others. This is due to the high amount of this type of waste that
is generated. However, the landfilling of metals greatly influences
the freshwater and terrestrial toxicity potentials while the landfill-
ing of plastics greatly influences the human toxicity potential. This
is due to the contaminants released when these wastes are land-
filled. Much less important are toxicity impacts due to stone which
are inert, except for human toxicity mainly due to particle emis-
sion to air. When analyzing the packaging wastes, we observe that
the landfilling of timber causes most of the impact in the AP, EP
and WU indicators, due to the high amount of this waste in com-
parison to the rest. Landfilling of plastic packaging is the mayor
contributor to the toxicity categories, due to the contaminants gen-
erated in the process, while the landfilling of paper and cardboard
is the mayor contributor to the GWP (due to the emissions pro-
ceeding from the paper and cardboard decomposition), RU, RE
and NRE indicators.

In this paper we have evaluated environmental impacts for con-
struction waste in terms of the LIFE98 ENV/E/351 project. Three
different scenarios have been compared from a case study in Cata-
lonia, Spain. The results are shown according to each scenario. In
Table 3 we summarize the environmental profile of the different
scenarios. Due to the avoided loads of the recovered materials,
the recycling scenario presents negative values in all the impact
categories calculated. We shall remember that negative values
mean environmental benefits, as the avoided impact (material
recovered) is higher than the generated impact (recycling process
and transport to the plant). Both construction process and packag-
ing materials wastes present a final beneficial impact, meaning
that the recycling scenario is the most environmentally friendly
from the three compared. When comparing the landfilling and
incineration scenarios we observe that, except for the GWP indica-
tor, the incineration scenario presents lower environmental im-
pacts than the landfilling. For some indicators and wastes, the
incineration scenario presents negative values, and thus, credits
to the system. This means that in these cases, the avoided impact
(energy generated) is higher than the generated impact (transport
to the incineration plant, incineration process and landfilling of
ashes). Final recommendations should be to recycle as much
wastes as possible, incinerate the rest and landfill when there is
no other option.
3.1. Scenario 1: Landfill
Fig. 2 shows the environmental impacts analyzed for the land-
filling scenario. The results include the environmental impacts of
both the landfill process and transport of the waste to the landfill
3.2. Scenario 2: Recycling
Fig. 3 shows the environmental impacts analyzed for the recy-
cling scenario. The results include the environmental impacts of
the recycling process, the transport of the waste to the recycling
site and the avoided loads of the materials generated. Recyclable
wastes were inert wastes (such as concrete, bricks, tiles and cera-
mic materials, and gypsum) and non-special wastes (such as wood,
plastic, paper and metals). Non-recyclable wastes were disposed of
to incineration or landfilling.
The findings of this scenario showed that for both wastes from
construction process and from materials, all the total environmen-
tal impacts were negative because of the recovery of recycled
materials, especially timber and plastic.
For most of the environmental categories calculated, timber
waste causes the mayor environmental benefits for both, the con-
struction process wastes and the packaging materials recycling,
due to the high avoided loads of the recovered materials. We
should also mention that the recycling of timber waste is beneficial
for all the environmental categories.
Stone recycling results in environmental benefits for most of the
environmental categories, except for the AP, GWP, EP and HTTP
indicators, where the recycling process has an impact higher than
that of the material obtained. Metals recycling results in environ-
mental benefits for most of the environmental categories, except
for the AP and EP indicators, where the recycling process has an
impact higher than that of the virgin metals avoided. The recycling
of plastics results in environmental benefits for both, the construc-
tion process waste and the packaging materials recycling, in most
of the environmental categories, except for the toxicity indicators.

Table 3
Environmental profile of the waste management scenarios compared (based on 1 m2 of constructed area).

Impact category Landfilling Recycling Incineration

Construction process Packaging materials Construction process Packaging materials Construction process Packaging materials
AP (kg SO2 eq) 2.47E 02 1.67E 03 7.61E 02 9.04E 02 9.15E 03 7.50E 03
GWP (kg CO2 eq) 4.18E+00 2.10E+00 1.56E+01 1.48E+01 1.22E+01 1.52E+00
EP (kg NOx eq) 4.53E-02 3.22E 03 8.05E 02 1.16E 01 4.00E 02 5.10E 04
FAETP (kg 1,4-DCB eq) 3.46E+03 2.45E+01 4.45E 01 2.79E+00 3.42E+03 1.44E+01
HTTP (kg 1,4-DCB eq) 2.50E+00 3.56E 01 3.62E+00 5.26E+00 1.92E+00 9.28E 02
TTP (kg 1,4-DCB eq) 7.39E+03 5.40E+01 2.02E+00 8.60E+00 7.32E+03 3.16E+01
RU (kg) 2.38E+01 6.88E 01 5.37E+03 7.21E+03 2.29E+01 9.30E 02
RE (MJ) 6.90E 01 9.34E 02 2.83E+04 3.84E+04 3.90E+00 2.68E+00
NRE (MJ) 8.70E+01 4.24E+00 5.09E+02 3.44E+02 1.85E+00 4.68E+01
WU (m3) 5.98E 02 6.75E 03 4.43E 01 5.31E 01 7.58E 02 7.34E 02
650 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654
Fig. 2. Environmental profile for the landfilling of construction process wastes (a) and packaging wastes (b).
Finally, the recycling of paper and cardboard results in environ-
mental benefits for most of the environmental categories, except
for the GWP, FAETP and TTP indicators, where the recycling pro-
cess has an impact higher than that of the virgin paper pulp
avoided.
3.3. Scenario 3: Incineration
Incinerable wastes were special wastes that have been contam-
inated with hazardous substances and others non-special wastes
containing wood, plastic, paper and cardboard. Non-incinerable
wastes such as stone materials and metals were considered to be
disposed of in landfills, thus producing no environmental benefits.
The avoided loads calculated for the incinerable wastes corre-
spond to the energy production, which depends on the calorific va-
lue of the material. Thus, the avoided energy generation produces
environmental benefits for the incineration of timber (AP, GWP, RE,
NRE and WU indicators), plastic (AP, EP, RE, NRE and WU indica-
tors) and paper and cardboard (AP, GWP, RE, NRE and WU indica-
tors), see Fig. 4. However, for those indicators where the
incineration process causes more impact than the avoided one,
the results are lower than the disposal of these wastes to a landfill.
3.4. Results comparison
The present part has particularly dealt with GWP because of its
importance within the construction industry both globally and lo-
cally and because it is an environmental impact that affects the
whole planet (UN-CSD, 2005; Houghton et al., 2001). For instance,
Spain’s second National Allocation Plan (NAP) for 2008–2012 (ap-
proved by Royal Decree 1370/2006 of 24 of November) has as-
signed emission rights for the first commitment period, limiting
to +37% our greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions compared to the
base year. Given that Spain is allowed to increase its emissions
by only 15% above 1990 levels in order to comply with Spain’s Kyo-
to Protocol (KP) commitment, the remaining reductions in GHG
emissions, will be obtained via carbon sinks (2%) and emission
trading (20%) (Lazaro-Touza, 2008). Locally, the Catalan Office for
Climate Change created by Decree 573/2006 on 19 December, is
to provide technical support for the Interdepartmental Climate
Change Committee in seeking to reduce environmental impacts
and implement climate change policies to mitigate its effects and
find the most appropriate formulas for adaptation (GENCAT,
2008). Then, Catalonia’s emissions reduction objectives are calcu-
lated on basis of Spain’s KP target (+15% under EU burden sharing),
as well as the commitments under the EU Emission Trading
Scheme (ETS) for sectors concerned.
Due to the fact that Spain as well as Catalonia, are seeking to re-
duce GHG emissions, it is important to carry out some alternatives
to accomplish it. Therefore, this part evaluates which situations are
more environmentally beneficial than the other. Then, we illustrate
the GWP of these options of waste disposal.
The first option looks at how different wastes are treated
depending on whether they are to be incinerated or not. To do
 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654
Fig. 3. Environmental profile for the recycling of construction process wastes (a) and packaging wastes (b).
so, we varied the final deposition process from incineration and
recycling. This meant a new scenario, called Incineration_2 (incin-
eration plus recycling), where incinerable wastes are disposed of in
an incineration plant and non-incinerable wastes are disposed by
recycling. By comparing the waste management of the four scenar-
ios for the LIFE98 ENV/E/351 project in terms of GWP (kgCO2 m 2),
it can be observed that the most environmentally friendly scenario
is recycling, followed landfilling, and lastly incineration (see Fig. 5).
In the incineration scenario attention should mainly focus on
plastic and insulation materials because they emit toxic com-
pounds. Paper and cardboard are materials that provide power
and thermal energy recovery due to their high calorific value. Recy-
cling plastic and cardboard is important because it reduces the
amount of raw materials that have to be sourced.
Fig. 6 summarizes the GWP of 1 kg of different construction and
demolition wastes when they are disposed of in landfill, incinera-
tion (those which are incinerable) and recycling (those which are
recyclable).
When similar amounts of each type of waste are compared, we
can observe that landfilling paper and cardboard is the major con-
651
tributor to GHG emissions, due to the gases emitted during decom-
position of these wastes. The incineration of plastics, bitumen and
insulation materials emit more GHG gases than the avoided emis-
sions due to the energy produced. Incineration of hazardous con-
struction wastes, wood, paper and cardboard presents credit due
to the energy recovery. We can also observe that the recycling of
most of all construction wastes that are recyclable is beneficial
for the environment as many of them have negative GWP results
while others have impacts lower than that of the landfilling or
incineration scenarios. Therefore, classifying construction wastes
in situ and promoting the recycling of building materials are very
important options for waste management and reduction. This is
especially important for waste materials such as plastic, wood, me-
tal, paper and glass because these materials can be easily recycled.
The second alternative was to evaluate the influence of trans-
port. Then, having the data for the distance from the origin of
waste to the plant in Table 2, they are used for comparing influence
of transport. For instance, landfills are usually close to building
sites whereas recycling and incineration plants can often be further
from them. Thus, we have determined how the distance from the
652 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654

Fig. 4. Environmental profile for the incineration of construction process wastes (a) and packaging wastes (b).

Fig. 5. Comparison of wastes management scenarios.

construction process to the treatment plants influences the treat- sidering an emission of 3.30E 04 kgCO2 per kg of waste trans-
ment of the different type of wastes. The waste was considered ported in 1 km, we have calculated the additional km that are
to be transported entirely by trucks with a capacity of 16 tons. Con- needed for the incineration and recycling plants in order to reach
 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654
Fig. 6. GWP indicator for the management of 1 kg of each type of waste.
Table 4
Influence of waste management plants locations and transport, according to the GWP
indicator (cut-off criteria >300 km).
Building material waste Incineration Plant (km) Recycling Plant (km)
Maximum distance from landfill to treatment plant
Concrete – 42
Brick – 42
Tiles + Ceramic – 42
Timber 577 53
Glass – 265
Steel + Iron – 164
Sealing – 30
Gypsum – 42
the GHG emissions of the landfill process. This calculation has been
done for those wastes that present lower GHG emissions for the
incineration or recycling process in comparison to the landfilling.
We have also considered that wastes will not probably be trans-
ported for long distances (for example, higher than 300 km), as
there are several incineration and recycling plants located in Spain,
and particularly in Catalonia, and because transport costs may not
allow such long distance transport for wastes.
Table 4 summarizes the maximum distances recommended
from the landfill facility to the incineration and recycling plants,
according to the GWP indicator. According to the results, incinera-
tion of hazardous construction wastes, wood, paper and cardboard
is always recommended instead of landfilling, given the long dis-
tances to which incineration is better than landfilling in terms of
GHG emissions. Recycling of timber and stone waste is recom-
mended when the recycling plant is not far from the building site.
However, we should mention that the most environmentally
friendly option for stone waste should be the recycling ‘‘in situ”
if they can be used as gravel replacement at the building site. In
this case, transport of such amounts of wastes should be avoided.
For the rest of the recyclable wastes evaluated, recycling is always
the recommended option as the maximum distances calculated are
high enough to be considered as long distances.
4. Conclusions
In this study, we used LCA to evaluate the environmental im-
pacts of three different waste management scenarios: landfilling,
recycling and incineration. Environmental impacts such as Global
653
Warming Potential (GWP), acidification potential and other typical
life cycle indicators have been analyzed, along with some eco-effi-
ciency indicators such as consumption of resources, renewable and
non-renewable energies and water.
Landfilling of packaging materials should be avoided as much as
possible, as all the packaging types influence different impact cat-
egories, thus causing high environmental impacts. In the case of
construction process wastes, the landfilling of metals and plastics
should be avoided as much as possible due to their influence in
the toxicity categories, while the landfilling of stone should be
avoided due to huge amount of these wastes generated and the
huge volumes they occupy in landfills.
It is important to notice, that even when the environmental im-
pact corresponding to the recycling of specific wastes results in a
positive value (meaning no net benefit for the environment), these
impacts are always lower than that caused by the landfilling of
these wastes and thus recycling shall always be the recommended
option.
In the case of incineration of construction wastes, we should say
that different indicators suggest different recommendations, as in
the case of plastic wastes that get environmental benefits or detri-
ments, depending on the indicator chosen. Thus, final decisions on
incineration should be taken considering several factors, as the
importance of the different impact categories, together with eco-
nomic and social aspects. For the case study analyzed in Catalonia,
we should say that recycling of waste is the recommended option,
followed by the landfilling and lastly incineration.
According to the influence of treatment plants location on the
GWP indicator, we should say that incineration and recycling of
construction wastes are better than landfilling, even for long dis-
tances from the building site to the plants. This is true for most
wastes except for the stony types, than should be recycled close
to the building site.
In summary, data from construction waste of a Catalan case
study was evaluated using a well established method of LCA to
determine the environmental impacts.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Construction Technology
Centre (iMat, Barcelona, Spain) for their collaboration, and the
Spanish Environmental Ministry for providing financial support
for the project number A435/2007/3-03.1.
654 O. Ortiz et al. / Waste Management 30 (2010) 646–654

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