Exploring the feasibility of construction and demolition waste recycling in an emerging Indian city using a dynamic modeling approach

In emerging economies like India, infrastructure development is expected to grow in the coming decades. Buildings, an important infrastructural asset and anthropogenic material source, need adequate exploration as potential raw material repositories. This study introduces a novel “Material FLow and market Behavior Assessment (MaLBA)” model to evaluate building material circularity prospects while integrating dynamic stock modeling for material flow and the Bass diffusion model for market maturity. The MaLBA model studies the feasibility of construction and demolition waste (CDW) recycling at the regional scale for Thane City, India, and highlights the influence of marketing mechanisms such as advertisement and word of mouth in recycled CDW product adoption at the regional scale. The model predicts a 20% decadal increase in CDW generation in the region, while the material required for new construction activities in Thane is expected to correspondingly rise by 13% between 2024 and 2050. Considering the present Indian policies focus on CDW recycling as the major CDW management strategy, the MaLBA model suggests that expanding Thane's recycling capacity from 300 to 700 Mt/Day can prove counterproductive to meet the national targets as the technical limitations of recycled material usage and limited user acceptance might lead to an oversupply of recycled CDW products by 2050. Therefore, this study recommends focusing on market development by doubling efforts to advertise recycled products and expand recycling infrastructure in alignment with regional infrastructure growth. Additionally, this study also suggests diversifying the CDW management approach by including strategies such as reduce and reuse for long-term benefits.