Research Information System
International Conference on Engineering and Natural Sciences (ICENS 2015), Üsküp, Macedonia, 15 - 19 May 2015, pp.226-231, (Full Text)
Construction wastes are mostly generated during implementation and demolition phases of a project. Since these wastes are inevitable, waste management focuses on reducing, reusing, and recycling of wastes instead of eliminating them. As the largest part of construction wastes, concrete is one of the mostly used materials in construction projects. Three raw materials of concrete (i.e., gravel, cement, and water) are natural resources, and over consumption can negatively affect the economy and environment of a country. In this regard, recycling of fresh concrete wastes is an important issue for waste management in the domain of construction. Although there are different recycling facilities for fresh concrete wastes, ready-mixed concrete (RMC) plants in Turkey do not have to build them. In the current study, it was aimed to present the benefits of the recycling facilities for RMC plants in Turkey as a part of an on-going research project. To this aim, different recycling facilities were compared with each other, and then, operation processes of these facilities were investigated by visiting some RMC plants. The results revealed that most of managers in these plants are aware of potential benefits of the recycling facilities. However, they find managing these facilities difficult, and thus, most of them do not build these facilities in their plants.