Zero Waste Systems: Barriers and Measures to Recycling of Construction and Demolition Waste

Urbanization, population growth, increased consumption, infrastructure, and housing needs are some of the factors that result in increased waste. Recycling has been a crucial way to reduce the amount of materials that end up in disposal sites and is how citizens, more aware of the impacts on the environment, participate in some of the schemes to reduce waste. Zero waste is an approach developed to preserve the finite resources available, but major barriers are hindering its efficient and effective implementation. This study intended to unveil those barriers in the Costa Rican construction sector and to propose measures to increase the recycling rates. In order to achieve the objective, construction companies, cement producers, waste managers, personnel of refuse material facilities, waste transformers, construction material distributors, and a director of the Ministry of Health were interviewed to determine the challenges in the valorization of concrete, wood, metal, and packaging waste materials. This article reports the findings, which include, among others, the fact that most construction companies dispose the waste without any separation, except for metals. The cement producer companies do not participate in any form of collection system in spite of the available technology and equipment and the absence of innovative technologies for the transformation of materials.