Impact of Construction Material on Environment - (Steel & Concrete)

Abstract: All around the globe the consumption of raw materials by the construction industries isaccumulating day by day resulting with an depletion of natural resources, increasing the environmental impacts and CO2 emissions all over the surroundings. Today steel and concrete are widely used and are dominating construction materials in construction industry. These two construction materials are different products and have distinct production flow with significantimpact on the environment. The amount of embodied energy and operational energy which is consumed in the process of production, recycling and reuse are becoming increasingly more important in the construction industries due to the potential shortage of natural resources in thenear by future and due to the inflation in the energy prices. This master’s thesis determines some of the problems of antagonistic environmental impacts due to the use of steel and concrete in the construction industries. To mitigatethese environmental impacts there are two technology and policy strategies summarizedin this thesis. i. Reduce consumption; andii. Material selection to reduce impacts.i. Reduce consumption: All around the globe the consumption of materials is growing day by day with an increase in the population resulting with a depletion of virgin materials. This depletion of virgin materials can be reduced with the help ofrecycling and reuse of the structural members. Recycling of structural members isalready practiced widely than reuse; reuse of the structural members additionallyreduces the consumption of virgin materials. High level of reuse of the structuralmaterials can be achieved by establishing design standards and regulations forstructural sections, and developing a market for reusable structural sections.ii. Material selection to reduce impacts: For the selection of constructionmaterials with minimum impact on the environment the designers needs tohave apropos education or tools. The main areas for augmentation areidentified as education of designers, and standardization and simplification ofselection tools like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Some of the main recommendations are: LCA tools standardization; reduce the impact sections and make these impact sections comprehendible and integrate uncertainty dataand educating designers about material selection tools with organized programs.