Wasting Time: The Challenge of Minimizing Construction Waste, Digital Fabrication and Are Our Digital Systems Fit-For-Purpose

Approximately one third of all landfill can be attributed to the construction sector. Waste generated by construction is a major hurdle to providing liveable built environments that crucially do not pollute natural environments. Countries that historically imported waste are reducing and stopping this practice. Waste is becoming a national problem for which many nations are not equipped. We delineate two of the key challenges in this area (1) dealing with the surplus and waste generated during construction and (2) reducing waste created during demolition. First, we look at several aspects of the problem of construction waste including its economics, culture and business model. Second, we focus on construction processes and discuss the authors original research, a pilot study of a digital fabrication construction project. It explores an off-site manufacturing (OSM) methodology for construction that minimises waste and does not require a proprietary factory. We discuss why the proprietary factory approach present major challenges for the sector. Additionally, we discuss the involvement of project partners and local communities. Finally, we look at demolition, specifically the limitations of existing systems to reduce waste. We finish by summarising our findings that this method of construction dramatically reduces construction waste. As well as outlining key obstacles to improving digital systems and reducing waste in the sector.