Thesis (MSc) - Cyprus International University. Institute of Graduate Studies and Research Engineering Management Department

Includes bibliography (sheets 46-51)

ABSTRACT
The construction industry is the greatest contributor to waste and waste management
is a sustainable approach which can have a significant role on optimization of natural
resource utilization, thereby, can be a compass to navigate the construction industry
into a circular economy. However, globally resource- retrieve through waste
management has been hampered by swarms of obstacles, and the construction sector
in the state of Palestine has not been immune to that either. Thereby, this research aims
to identify the prevailing obstacles which have hampered the proper execution of waste
management practices in Palestine’s construction and demolition sector and to show
the consequences of this practices. This study is significant since attempts to
underscore the significant impact of waste management practices “as the optimal
sustainable approach” on economy, environment and society. In addition, this research
tries to imply entrenchment of a novel circular business model while, urging
government and other involved regulatory entities to encourage the waste management
practices inside state of Palestine, in particular Ramallah city. The methodology of this
study is a fuzzy-based Bowtie analysis to assess construction waste management
practices risk. A bowtie analysis is a combination of a fault tree showing causes of a
top event and an event tree showing the consequences. The fuzzy logic theory is
adopted into the model to mathematically quantify the uncertain linguistic opinions of
experts. These linguistic Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a similarity
aggregate method (SAM) is used to aggregate the fuzzy numbers. The fuzzy numbers
are defuzzied using the Centre of Area (COA) method to get the probability score and
impact score of the top events. The results show that Difficulty of accessing
construction site and congestion of site (problem 2) have the highest probability score
(0.9685) then Difficulty in Coordination of waste management, problem with site
management, and recycling of materials on site (Problem 1) with probability score of
(0.8232). A sensitivity analysis is carried out to show the changes in the probability
score when a basic event is eliminated while other events are held constant. Mitigation
strategies for the basic events are also suggested. The managerial implication of this
research is a priority list that construction industry can adopt for their waste
management.
Keywords:Construction Project, Landfill, Palestine, Sustainable-Alternative Practice,
Waste Accumulation, Waster Practices