Causes of building material waste in construction sites in Egypt

Abstract EN

Waste management has low priority in construction projects so as thousands of tons of construction wastes polluting cities in Egypt.

The amount of building construction waste in the developed countries is different from that of the undeveloped countries.

In Egypt, waste management in construction projects has low priority so as thousands of tons of wastes pollute cities.

This study aims at identifying causes of waste and their levels in different building materials in the construction industry in Egypt to select suitable strategies for managing and improving construction processes.

A questionnaire survey is designed to evaluate fifty two causes of material waste, identified from previous studies and experts' interviews which are classified into four categories.

Two hundred and forty respondents are received.

Results show that the most common causes of waste in Egypt are selecting contractors with low experience, material damage in construction sites, poor planning and scheduling of the work by contractors, selection of low quality material, poor storages, and poor control on work contractors.

The majority of material wastes are produced from bricks, sand, timber panels, cement, tiles, and concrete.