PLASTIC WASTE MATERIALS MANAGEMENT AND REUSE IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: THE CASE OF SELECTED FIRST GRADE CONTRACTORS IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Plastic is widely used in our day to day life. Plastic waste reuse in construction according to this study is very important both to the environment and the construction sector. The study helps to fill the knowledge and practical gaps in the reuse of waste plastics practice in construction, the insufficient study and the gaps in the trend of using plastic wastes as suitable construction matterials. The objective of this study was to assess waste plastic materials management practice in Addis Ababa selected construction sectors. As a research methodology qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to assess the responses given to questionnaires. From several contractors in Addis Ababa level one/grade one contractors were selected as target population. For meeting the objective of the study data collection was made using questionnaire as data collection tool. And among the 100 questionnaires, only 72 were collected. Samples were drawn using convenient sampling approach. Based on the data analysis, the result of the study revealed that ‘Reduced Consumption of financial resources to purchase products’, “Less plastic waste in the environment”, “Easy to use and maintain”, “Increased work opportunity”, “Lesser labor energy consumption” and “Minimum cost of labor” were the major impacts of reuse of plastic materials in construction and concluded that reusing plastic wastes in production of construction materials is important in major concerns of construction management areas like time , cost, quality, human resource management and also environmental protection. To support the findings according to the responses of the respondents, laboratory tests on produced plastic waste floor tile materials were made. Finally the study recommended for the study to be made in wide range including other areas, extended population size including consultants, clients, and other construction stakeholders. In addition, experimental researches should be made in order to recycle plastic wastes to use different purposes and decrease the exposure of the environment to plastic waste.