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2015 | Buch

Construction Safety and Waste Management

An Economic Analysis

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Über dieses Buch

This monograph presents an analysis of construction safety problems and on-site safety measures from an economist’s point of view. The book includes examples from both emerging countries, e.g. China and India, and developed countries, e.g. Australia and Hong Kong. Moreover, the author covers an analysis on construction safety knowledge sharing by means of updatable mobile technology such as apps in Androids and iOS platform mobile devices. The target audience comprises primarily researchers and experts in the field but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Sustainable Construction Waste Management in Australia: A Motivation Perspective
Abstract
Construction industry is one of the industries that generates and dumps heaps of waste to landfill. In Australia, about 40 % of the construction and demolition waste is disposed to landfill. Hence, state governments in Australia have initiated various strategies which aim to reduce construction waste. These include levy on construction waste and various proposals of zero waste strategies. Hence, some of the companies reduce, reuse and recycle the construction waste to reduce the amounts of landfill payment. Nevertheless, is monetary expenditure the only effective motivation factor which lead to a reduction in construction waste? Is there any other motivation factors which sucessfully power waste reduction? There are three major contributions in this chapter: (1) it perceives the idea of sustainable construction waste from whole building cycle perspective instead of construction and demolition stage alone. (2) It reviews the construction companies, contractors, government sectors and materials manufacturers’ sustainability issues in Australia’s construction industry from economics, social and environmental perspectives. (3) It examines the motivation of these companies in sustainable construction waste management under the lens of positive and negative incentive, goal setting and hierarchy of needs theory.
Rita Yi Man Li, Huibin Du
Chapter 2. Scholars’ Comments and Criticisms on Construction and Municipal Solid Waste Management in Hong Kong and Singapore from 2000 to Present: A Review of Digital Information Online
Abstract
Waste is considered as an end of city product’s life as well as a burden in modern society. The government of Hong Kong and Singapore are striving to improve construction and municipal solid waste management since 1960. At the same time, waste policies lead to social and economic controversies among citizen. How can we develop better sustainable waste management strategies? Will these methods lead to different level of environmental and economic problems? Whilst previous research in construction and municipal waste mainly sheds light on the methods of construction waste management on sites by interviews, surveys and case studies, few research has been conducted to study the digital information available in academic journal database and World Wide Web. This chapter tries to fill this gap by discussing (1) whether the government’s waste management strategies are sustainable; (2) the efforts on construction and municipal solid waste made by the governments in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Rita Yi Man Li, Simon Fong, Hoi Man Chan
Chapter 3. A Content Analysis on Static Digital Information About the Causes of Construction Accidents
Abstract
In many places, construction accident rates are high. While construction companies incur a huge sum of money for compensation in accidents, the injured workers suffer from loss of income and even capacity to work. As implementation of construction safety measures and relevant regulations require the knowledge of construction accident causes, this research study aims at reviewing the digital information available in academic journal database about construction accidents with the help of information technology tools. The research results show that (1) many of the journal articles shed light on developed countries, with the majority come from Europe and the US. (2) Heaps of research analyses the statistics from official database or report as their method of research studies, followed by questionnaires/survey or interview. Triangulation, i.e. more than one research method, is seldom used in these journal articles. (3) Science Direct and ASCE library contain more journal articles which are related to causes of construction accidents than the other databases. (4) Lots of them concede that accidents is more likely to happen because of the immediate causes of accidents, such as fall, slip and struck by objects, and the workers’ characteristics.
Rita Yi Man Li, Sun Wah Poon, Daniel Chi Wing Ho
Chapter 4. Relevant Data in the Rising Tide of Big Data: A Text-Mining Analysis in Construction Safety Index
Abstract
The previous generation of academia faced the problem of insufficient data, academic journal articles and books. Thanks to the rapid development of World Wide Web since 90s, academic papers published in one place can be viewed in another side of the globe, insufficient literature and data problems have been relieved. Modern academic researchers, however, face another major problem of big data. There are too many irrelevant articles. Much of the time has been spent to search for the relevant articles from the irrelevant ones. One of the major aims of this chapter is to review the problem of big data based on the example of construction safety index. Construction safety is an important issue Worldwide. The development of construction safety index is of particular importance as it provides an objective measurement on the level of safety on sites. This chapter reviews (1) how intelligence is the academic search engine in screening the relevant articles out the irrelevant materials, (2) compare and contrast the methods which are used to construct the construction safety indices with the other indices constructed worldwide.
Rita Yi Man Li
Chapter 5. An Institutional Economic Analysis on Construction Safety Knowledge Sharing and E-Learning via Mobile Apps
Abstract
The growth of World Wide Web and mobile technology such as mobile phones and tablets nurture the mobile learning development. Construction workers can now learn anytime and anywhere at affordable costs. Transaction costs of obtaining various information and knowledge can be reduced substantially with various mobile apps. Some workers who work alone can also obtain the knowledge about their jobs or first aid knowledge via wireless devices. Likewise, the popularity of various apps provide an alternative channels to construction firms and safety officers who wish to share the construction safety knowledge with construction workers who may have high time costs to attend safety lectures and tutorials. This chapter reviews the present mobile apps usage in safety knowledge sharing and m-learning feasibility. It is found that many of the safety mobile apps are used for (1) building safety inspection checklists, recording the safety meeting, safety accidents (2) knowledge sharing via videos and (3) calculate safety risks according to different types of indices such as heat and heavy lifting.
Rita Yi Man Li
Chapter 6. Supply and Demand of Construction Safety Regulations in Developing Countries
Abstract
Construction industry plays an important role in developing countries’ economic development. It is often viewed as one of the major economic engines in economic growth. A lot of these countries, however, are efficient-driven which often undermine the safety importance on site. This chapter firstly reviews the economic role of construction industry in developing countries, followed by an analysis on safety regulations and related authorities in China, Nigeria, Kuwait and Ghana. It is found that 1) these countries have implemented some safety rules and regulations, 2) many of them are poorly design and 3) the enforcement is quite loose.
Rita Yi Man Li, Jian Zuo, Terdoo Fanen
Chapter 7. Construction Safety Motivations in Hong Kong: A Psychological Perspective
Abstract
There is an increase in the number of construction accidents in recent years in Hong Kong. While most of the previous studies focus on the causes of accidents and the associated costs the research on motivation of safety behaviors among construction practitioners is relative scarce. This chapter sheds light on the findings of a questionnaire survey and the results were analyzed with Principal Component Factor analysis. The findings indicate that recognition of safety behavior and workers’ safety concept are good motivation for workers to work safely. Human relationship and goal acceptance are less important factor for safety motivation.
Rita Yi Man Li, Sun Wah Poon
Chapter 8. A Conceptual Study of Construction Workers’ Safety Performance from Safety Climate and Social Exchange Perspectives
Abstract
Construction safety performance can be measured in a number of ways. Some of the popular indicators include number of construction accidents, fatalities and fatalities rate and compensation. Nevertheless, it is criticised that these lagging indicators cannot accurately measure safety performance on sites. Hence, another strand of literature views the issue from safety climate and social exchange perspective. Safety climate, our perceptions of safety practices, policies, procedures about safety on site provides an indicator for safety priority at work. On the other hand, social exchange theory perceived organisation support affects our obligation, gratitude and trust on various issues in workplace including safety. Perceived organizational support and leader membership exchange, under the umbrella of social exchange, are two major items which may affect construction safety performance.
Rita Peihua Zhang, Rita Yi Man Li
Metadaten
Titel
Construction Safety and Waste Management
verfasst von
Rita Yi Man Li
Copyright-Jahr
2015
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-12430-8
Print ISBN
978-3-319-12429-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12430-8