Economic, social and environmental aspects of the sustainability of a construction waste recycling plant

Abstract

Abstract: The civil construction industry has great prominence in the national economy, however, the sector is responsible for generating a large amount of Construction Waste (CW). The CW recycling plants present technological solutions that aim to minimize the environmental impact caused by the inadequate disposal of the CW, and that the generated material is no longer a problem and becomes a sustainable outlet for the scarcity of natural resources. This article analysed the economic, social and environmental aspects of an CW recycling plant, situated in Passo Fundo / RS. As a result, the quantification and classification of waste sent to the CW recycling plant was obtained from March to December 2016. An economic evaluation of the plant was carried out based on the comparison of the economic decision criteria between the Minimum Acceptable Rate of Return (MARR) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). Subsequently, social aspects were evaluated, such as the profiles of employees, their salaries and issues related to health and safety, education and training. When assessing the environmental aspect of the CW recycling plant, the composition, the separation process employed and the way in which these residues were used were determined. The conclusions demonstrated that the company is economically viable since the IRR was higher than the MARR. In the social assessment, the employment opportunity for different genres stands out and regarding the environmental question, the ability to reuse civil construction waste in 97.98% of the material received.