A Sustainable Approach for Dealing with Construction Wastes

Three major topics are involved in this work. These topics are field survey for construction and demolition waste dumps, waste characterization, construction waste generation rate, and recycling work of waste concrete and limestone. The major dumping areas of the wastes were pointed out and located. The field survey revealed the complication of the problem and the existing management of the wastes by Mosul Municipality. The characterization processes was conducted on the wastes using visual characterization to know the composition of the residential units waste. The results obtained show that each of the waste concrete and soil constitute about one third of waste by weight. The other waste materials compose the other remaining third. The rate of generation was about 59kg/m2. The recycling process was focused on the waste concrete and waste limestone. The recycled concrete and limestone were used as coarse aggregate in concrete mixes. Tests applied on the resulting fresh and hardened concrete were slump, compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting strength and modulus of elasticity tests.