title: Emergy analysis of the recycling options for construction and demolition waste.
abstract: Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is becoming a major contributor to environmental pollution. In Shanghai, China, the quantity of C&D waste is 2.11E+07 t/yr, which accounts for 45% of the total quantity of solid waste. There has been a growing promotion of recycling C&D waste as an effective way to solve this waste problem. However, the evaluation of the efficiency of recycling C&D waste as a potential source of resources is largely based on traditional economic analysis. The economic analysis emphasizes money instead of the harmony between economic benefit and environmental effects. There is a need for a new strategic approach to investigate the efficiency of recycling C&D waste to achieve the integration between economic, social and environmental effects. Emergy theory can be employed to analyze different recycling options for C&D waste. With reference to the Chinese construction industry, this paper demonstrates that the close-loop recycling option is better than the open-loop recycling option for C&D waste in terms of the integration of social, environmental and sustainable aspects. To evaluate different technology solutions for C&D waste recycling, the emergy theory and method is not limited to a cost-benefit balance but can include economic, social, environmental and sustainable effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Construction and Real Estate, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, PR China. yuanfang78@gmail.com
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Li-yin
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Qi-ming
authors.initials: QM
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D003252:Construction Materials; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D059027:Recycling / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013597:Systems Analysis; D014866:Waste Products / Q000032:analysis* / Q000191:economics*
chemical_list: D014866:Waste Products