Strategies for construction waste management in ho chi minh city, vietnam

Strategies for construction waste management in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Florence Yean Yng Ling Department of Building, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore, and Dinh

Built Environment Project and Asset Management

St rat egies f or const ruct ion wast e management in Ho Chi Minh Cit y, Viet nam

Florence Yean Yng Ling Dinh Song Anh Nguyen

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Strategies for construction waste management in

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Florence Yean Yng Ling

Department of Building, National University of Singapore,

Singapore, Singapore, and

Dinh Song Anh Nguyen

Langdon and Seah, Singapore, Singapore

Abstract

Purpose – There is a lack of waste minimization in Vietnam This study aims to investigate the

barriers that are faced in implementing waste management and the extent to which waste management

practices are adopted It recommends improvements to management of waste in Vietnam, with a focus

on Ho Chi Minh City.

Design/methodology/approach – Using the questionnaire survey approach, data were collected

from construction practitioners in Vietnam using the self-administrated postal survey Findings were

validated via in-depth interviews with three experts.

Findings – There is a lack of awareness about construction and waste minimization in Vietnam.

Effective waste management for Vietnam are: employ subcontractors with waste management ability;

conduct training; audit and provide close supervision of subcontractors and workers; sequence

activities to reduce damage to completed work; set level of wastage allowable; and enforce these

through rewards and punishments.

Research limitations/implications – As the survey was conducted on a small sample size of

contractors in Ho Chi Minh City, the findings may not be representative of the whole of Vietnam The

data were based on respondents’ perceptions rather than factual records.

Practical implications – The effective strategies identified by this study could be used by

construction industry practitioners in Vietnam to reduce waste generated, and thereby undertake

construction in a more sustainable manner.

Social implications – The benefits of better waste management include: improved environmental

credentials; savings in disposal and transport costs; revenue from reuse and recycling; and reduced cost

of materials.

Originality/value – Vietnam is undergoing infrastructure development, and these construction

projects have large impacts on the environment This study identified areas in which waste management

is found wanting, and suggested ways for Vietnam to improve.

Keywords Construction waste, Material wastage, Waste management, Vietnam, Barriers,

Waste minimization, Waste

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

While waste management has been studied in other countries, Vietnam deserves its

own study due to its unique political, social, economic and technological situations

Vietnam is a socialist republic with a one-party system led by the Communist party

of Vietnam It has a centrally planned economy which is dominated by state-owned

enterprises that produce about 40 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP)

(Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2012) Agriculture and manufacturing sectors’

share of economic output are 22 and 40 per cent, respectively (CIA, 2012) Construction

products are needed by the manufacturing sector to carry out productive activities, and

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to facilitate socioeconomic development The strong demand for construction products leads to a construction boom One of the typical characteristics of unprecedented construction boom in a developing country is a lack of attention to managing construction waste

Minimizing construction waste is important because this could reduce the environmental stress imposed on the population who rely on the natural ecosystem for their livelihoods through agriculture With its limited financial resources, minimizing construction waste leads to savings in disposal and transport costs, increased revenue from reusing and recycling materials and reducing cost of materials From the economic angle, this results in more affordable housing and infrastructure systems to support the rapid urbanization process As Vietnam’s technological development stage

is relatively immature (Nguyen et al., 2004a), the problem is that it may not have the

capability to undertake waste management

The aim of this study is to propose waste management strategies for adoption in Vietnam’s construction industry In the context of Vietnam, the specific objectives are to: investigate waste management performance of construction projects; identify the barriers that are faced in implementing waste management; study the extent to which waste management practices are adopted, and thereby recommend improvements to management of waste in Vietnam The purpose of the study is to inform industry practitioners of the more effective waste management practices in Vietnam

The scope of this research is focused on local construction firms that are headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) HCMC is selected because it is the financial centre of Vietnam, and attracts a large amount of investment capital from both local and foreign organizations There are thus many construction projects in HCMC, and their waste management practices could be investigated This study focused on construction material wastage because of its importance and implications

on both the environment and the efficiency of construction activities

Literature review There is a need to reduce construction and demolition waste for environmental and economic reasons (Teo and Loosemore, 2001) Waste generated from construction projects has a negative environmental impact (Shen and Tam, 2002) According to El-Haggar (2007), effective construction waste management could decrease non-renewable waste and conserve natural resources Waste forms a significant contribution to landfill, and there is a need to conserve the dwindling landfill resources (McDonald and Smithers, 1998) As waste involves costs, ranging from original purchase prices to transportation, handling and disposing expenses, it has strong implication on a contractor’s profitability (Ekanayake and Ofori, 2004) The potential benefits of waste management include: improved environmental credentials; savings in disposal and transport costs; revenue from reusing and recycling; and reduced cost of materials (McDonald and Smithers, 1998; Teo and Loosemore, 2001)

A waste management system aims to reduce excessive usage and encourage reusing and recycling of components and materials (Ling and Lim, 2002) The effectiveness of waste management on a construction site may be ascertained by: quantity of materials used in the project (actual vs plan); quantity of waste generated (actual vs plan); quantity of waste that were reused/recycled (actual vs maximum reusable quantity); quality performance of reused/recycled waste; extent

to which the level of waste generation caused difficulties/problems; and level of success of waste management

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A review of literature on waste management strategies shows that the

practices may be categorized into: procurement; management of subcontractors

and the workforce; training and supervision; material handling and control; and

communication and documentation

Procurement: in procuring the services of subcontractors, the selection criteria

should include their environmental awareness, and not just their price (Kumaraswamy

and Matthews, 2000)

Management of subcontractors and workforce: Dainty and Brooke (2004) found that

effective measures of waste minimization are those that foster waste minimization

partnerships throughout the supply chain, and this includes subcontractors

Training and supervision: work-specific training and close supervision in

waste management is important because a large proportion of the workforce is

unskilled (Ofori and Debrah, 1998) Subcontractors’ wasteful practices stem from their

lack of training in adopting less wasteful practices and dealing with waste, misconception

of waste and a lack of appreciation for the value of materials (Ling and Lim, 2002)

Material handling and control: Guthrie and Mallet (1995) suggested that wastage

of materials on site can be attributed to damage and spillage, contamination, storage

beyond use-by date, over supply, out of specification, theft and vandalism Proper

material handling and control would improve the quality of construction material

supplied (Ekanayake and Ofori, 2004)

Communication and documentation: inadequate communication and a lack of data

flow has negatively affected waste management (Kulatunga et al., 2006) Confusion

often arises from poorly drafted specifications and inadequate contract documentation,

leading to delays or errors in ordering of materials, and further wastage on site (Ling

and Lim, 2002)

Gap of knowledge

While many studies on waste management and minimization strategies had been

done by researchers in many countries (examples are Shen and Tam, 2002; Poon

et al., 2004 in Hong Kong, Serpell and Alarcon, 1998 in Chile and Bossink and

Brouwers, 1996 in the Netherlands), the extent to which waste management is

practiced and the barriers to implementing waste management in Vietnam have

hitherto not been studied

Vietnam deserves a special study for the reasons stated in the Introduction

section Moreover, its labourers have low level of education and lack construction

skills, and its construction industry has low technological penetration (Nguyen et al.,

2004a) These make the waste management systems developed in other countries not

completely relevant to Vietnam

Several construction-related research on Vietnam had been conducted Ling et al.

(2009) studied the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Vietnam’s

construction and consultancy firms and pointed out that one of the weaknesses is the

lack of project management ability Nguyen et al (2004a) investigated problems faced

by large construction firms in Vietnam Nguyen et al (2004b) studied the project

success factors in large construction projects in Vietnam All these did not delve into

waste management

This study thus aimed to fill the knowledge gap by conducting an in-depth study on

the extent to which waste management is practised and recommending specific strategies

that would lead to better waste performance in particular and environmentally sustainable

development of Vietnam in general

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Research method Based on the literature review, a survey questionnaire was designed The purpose

of the survey was to identify the performance standard of waste management

on construction sites, barriers to implementing waste management, and extent to which good waste management practices are adopted on construction sites in Vietnam The structured questionnaire had four main sections The first section required respondents to provide information on one specific construction project that their firms had completed in Vietnam They were also asked to evaluate the project’s waste management performance level in six areas (see Table III, Y1-Y6) A seven-point Likert scale was used, and the anchors for the scale are shown in Table III (column 2) The second section asked respondents to rate the extent to which the project adopted the 32 waste management practices operationalized from the literature review (see Table V, S1-S32) The rating was based on a seven-point Likert scale, where 1 ¼ not adopted;

4 ¼ adopted 50 per cent of the time; and 7 ¼ adopted nearly all the time The third section requested respondents to rate on a seven-point Likert scale the extent to which

17 factors (D1-D17, Table IV) are barriers to waste management, where 1 ¼ totally disagree; 4 ¼ neutral; and 7 ¼ totally agree The final section requested respondents to provide some general information on themselves and their firms The questionnaire was then translated into Vietnamese

A pilot survey was carried out by testing the questionnaire with three Vietnamese project managers This also allowed the experts to share local priorities and issues relating to waste management, so that ideas that are missed out could be incorporated into the questionnaire before the industry wide survey was conducted

The population frame consisted of Ministry of Construction’s licensed general building contractors The sampling frame comprised firms that operate in HCMC and

60 stated-own contractors and private local contractors were randomly selected The data collection method was self-administrated postal survey The survey package comprised a structured questionnaire, a self-addressed and stamped envelope and an introductory letter to explain the objectives of the research, and inviting participation Postal survey was adopted as it reduces biasing error because there is no face-to-face interaction between respondents and researchers Also, anonymity could

be achieved The respondents also have more time to think before they answer To overcome the problem of low response rate, follow-ups were made through telephone calls and e-mails to remind respondents to complete the survey

After the data were analysed, three face-to-face interviews with experts were conducted to substantiate the findings and triangulate the results Two experts worked for contractors as construction managers, and one expert was a contractor’s site architect Their construction experience ranged from 11 to 28 years, and they were not involved in the pilot study or questionnaire survey stage

Data analysis

Data were analysed using the SPSS software t-test of the mean was conducted to

ascertain: the waste performance standards (test 1, m ¼ 4); significant barriers to implementing waste management (test 2, m ¼ 4); and waste management practices that are not significantly adopted (test 3, m ¼ 5) Tests 1 and 2 had test value m ¼ 4 as this is the centre of a seven-point scale For test 3, on a senven-point scale, “4” is when the practice is adopted 50 per cent of the time, while 5 would be more than half the time

m is set at 5 because good waste management practices need to be adopted more often, and not just randomly about half of the time The null hypothesis is that the measure is

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practised to a large extent, and the alternative hypothesis is that the measure is not

significantly adopted When po0.05, and the t-value is negative, the null hypothesis is

rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted It is then concluded that the waste

management measure is not adopted to a significant extent

Characteristics of the sample

From the 60 packages sent out, 36 questionnaires were returned, giving a response rate

of 60 per cent The characteristics of respondents and their firms, and the projects that

they reported on are summarized in Tables I and II, respectively

Table I shows that the majority of the respondents are middle management The

average years of experience is 14.9 years On the average, respondents’ firms had 210

employees Their firms’ average revenue was VND 82.5 billion (US$1EVND 21,000)

per annum All were contractors undertaking general building works Some of them

also undertake renovation works

All the 36 respondents were personally involved in the projects that they reported

on, and their firms were main contractors in these projects This suggests that the

information they provide about the projects may be accurate The main types of

projects they reported are building projects, with a concentration on residential and

commercial buildings (see Table II) Most of the projects are privately owned The

average floor area and contract value were 10,468 m2and VND 50 billion, respectively,

suggesting medium-sized projects The proportion of work subcontracted ranged from

0 to 100 per cent, with an average of 24 per cent

Results

Performance standard in waste management

Table III shows that projects in Vietnam had poor waste management performance in all

the 6 measures, as indicated by the mean values that are lower than 4 (on a seven-point

Designation

Experience in construction industry

Size of workforce

Annual revenue (VND billion)

Note: When na36, it is because some respondents did not provide the data

Table I Characteristics

of respondents and their firms

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scale) Of these, four measures had significantly (po0.05) poor performance (Y1, Y2,

Y4 and Y6)

Quantity of materials used (Y1) and quantity of waste generated from the projects (Y2) were significantly high With the higher level of waste generated, some of these materials were reused or recycled (Y3), though not to a significant extent The quality of the reused/recycled material (Y4) was significantly low, indicating inadequate planning and treatment of waste materials Overall, the firms assessed that their level of success in managing waste (Y6) was significantly below expectation

Objective 1 of this study was to investigate the performance standard in waste management in Vietnam The findings in Table III show that waste management is of a low standard, with significantly more materials used than necessary, significantly more waste generated, and the waste cannot be reused/ recycled because of its significantly low quality The results indicate that the construction practices in Vietnam are not sustainable, and suggest that there

is potential scope for minimizing waste and improving the effectiveness of waste management in Vietnam

Location

Floor area (m2)

Contract sum (VND billion)

Type of facility

Ownership of facility

Proportion of works subcontracted

Table II.

Characteristics

of projects reported

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Code Performance measure and scale Mean SD t-value Significance (one-tail)

Y1 Quantity of materials used in this project (actual vs plan), scale:

1 ¼ higher by 45%; 2 ¼ higher by 1-5%; 3 ¼ higher by o1%;

4 ¼ same as plan; 5 ¼ lower by o1%; 6 ¼ lower by 1-5%;

7 ¼ lower by 45%

3.06 1.286 4.406 0.000

Y2 Quantity of waste generated by this project (actual vs plan),

scale: same as Y1.

3.39 0.838 4.378 0.000

Y3 Quantity of materials/waste that were reused/recycled (actual

vs maximum reusable quantity), Scale: 1 ¼ not at all; 4 ¼ half of

maximum quantity; 7 ¼ same as maximum quantity

3.77 1.657 0.710 0.242

Y4 Quality performance of reused/recycled materials/waste

generated by this project site (actual vs standard), scale:

1 ¼ much lower; 4 ¼ standard met; 7 ¼ much higher

3.15 1.120 3.851 0.000

Y5 Does the level of waste generation cause any difficulties/

problems for your firm? (actual vs expectation), scale:

1 ¼ exceeded expectation; 4 ¼ same as expectation; 7 ¼ lower

than expectation

3.67 1.219 1.641 0.055

Y6 Level of success of firm’s waste management strategies (actual

vs expectation), scale: 1 ¼ totally unsatisfied; 4 ¼ expectations

met; 7 ¼ exceeded expectations

2.97 0.910 6.778 0.000

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Barriers to implementing waste management

Objective 2 was to identify the barriers to implementing waste management in

Vietnam Table IV shows that the significant barriers (test 2: mean44, t-value positive,

po0.05) are D1, D2, D5-D7, D13 and D16.

The findings suggest that significant barriers to implementing waste management permeate project organizations and construction sites At the client level, there is apathy as clients do not expect waste management to be done, and care more about the progress of the works than waste management This is because most clients are primarily concerned with costs rather than waste management to reduce environmental impact (Wong and Yip, 2004)

At the site level, project team members, workers and subcontractors do not really care and are not always aware that what they are doing leads to waste generation The findings agree with Teo and Loosemore (2001) who found that waste management is perceived as a low project priority amongst construction workers and project team members This is a cause for concern because the persons creating the problem do not know that they are part of the problem Outside of the project, the government’s inaction

to enforce laws on waste management serves as a barrier to waste management

Waste management strategies ignored

Objective 3 of this study was to investigate the extent to which waste management strategies are adopted by Vietnamese contractors Table V shows that many good

waste management practices are not significantly (test 3: meano5, t-value negative,

po0.05) practised in Vietnam.

Among the seven desirable waste management practices relating to training and supervision (S1-S7 in Table V), four are not adopted to a significant extent (S1, S4, S6 and S7) The lack of training and supervision in waste management suggests the absence of effort to change workers’ attitude In this in-depth interview, the first construction manager confirmed this and went on to emphasize that training is very important as a large proportion of construction workers in Vietnam are unskilled and/

or seasonal workers Poor attitude must be changed so that the project may gain the

maximum benefit from waste management practices (Kulatunga et al., 2006).

Under the category of management of subcontractors and workforce (S8-S15), two practices are not adopted to a significant extent (S9 and S10) Enforcing waste management requirements in the contract or inserting penalty clauses into the contracts can help make subcontractors pay attention to waste management on site (Dainty and Brooke, 2004) Reward schemes can be used to motivate construction

workers to increase their participation in waste reduction schemes (Chen et al., 2002) In

the in-depth interview, the first construction manager shared that incentives and penalties are not implemented despite their important roles in waste management He opined that positive incentives are better than punitive actions Notwithstanding this,

as waste management and minimization are not popular in Vietnam, penalties are still needed to force workers to pay attention to this matter He said that it would be better

to incorporate both reward and penalty into a single appraisal system so that it is more balanced In the long run, efficient usage of materials should come from workers’ awareness and willingness, instead of external rewards/punishments

Among the eight desirable practices offered under the material handling and control (S16-S23) category, two practices are not significantly adopted (S18 and S23) The findings agree with Faniran (1998) who identified leftover material scraps as one of the most significant sources of construction waste

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Code Possible barriers Mean t-value Significance (one-tail)

D1 Waste management not widely implemented by subcontractors 5.19 5.155 0.000 D2 Project participants were not always aware that their work practices lead to

waste generation

5.08 4.082 0.000

D3 Project players were unwilling to implement waste management 3.72 0.943 0.176 D4 Over-reliance on subcontractors to implement waste management strategies 3.75 0.723 0.237 D5 Client not expecting waste management to be done 4.36 2.188 0.018 D6 Client care more about the progress of the construction work than waste

management

4.69 3.247 0.001

D7 Lack of time to implement waste management in the project 4.44 2.129 0.020 D8 Lack of knowledge and expertise to implement waste management strategies 4.00 0.000 0.500 D9 Lack of money to implement waste management in the project 3.06 2.919 0.003 D10 Ineffective cooperation among project players in implementing waste

management

3.50 2.049 0.024

D11 Low quality of project documents (e.g over-specification, under-detailing,

insufficient required information, etc.)

2.89 4.078 0.000

D12 Use of large number of unskilled labour on the project 3.58 1.274 0.106 D13 Wasteful practice of workers and subcontractors on the construction site 4.44 2.212 0.017 D14 Inability to measure construction waste 3.67 1.080 0.144 D15 No/insufficient national standard or benchmarks to monitor the company’s waste

generation and waste minimization progress

4.06 0.161 0.436

D16 No/insufficient enforcement of laws and regulations on waste management 4.50 2.106 0.021 D17 Lack of incentives and appraisals of effective waste minimization 3.75 0.743 0.231

Note: Rating is on seven-point scale, where 1 ¼ totally disagree and 5 ¼ totally agree

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