Treatment of construction waste in Serbia and the life cycle of buildings

Abstract

One of the most important areas towards which the European building sector turns is the waste management strategy. Based on the principles of sustainable development, this strategy is instrumentalized through 3R concept in order to establish control over the progressive exhaustion of resources and reduce the burden of waste materials in the environment through a simultaneous application of three principles: reduce, reuse and recycle. Modern tendencies of management of construction waste are based on assessment and evaluation of the life cycle of buildings, aimed at review the possibility of introducing new concepts of design and construction of buildings, based on the principles of reuse and recycling. In this sense, the environmental characteristics of building materials and identification of their impact on the environment during the life cycle, become of great importance and one of the main instruments in the field of waste management. Enforcement of the 3R principles and waste management implementation mechanisms are introduced into the legal system of the European Union, whose rapid adoption and compliance with local legislation is expected by all member states and the countries of claimants for a place in the Union. On the way to regulate this area, Serbia has done a more complex part of work related to the formation of the local legislative framework for waste management and its harmonization with the basic principles of the EU. Simultaneously, in the previous period the first steps in technical realization of set goals were made. On the other hand, on the way to the final regulation of this area, Serbia expects additional efforts and involvement of all stakeholders in the promotion of basic principles of waste management, and the introduction of appropriate incentives, after the model of developed communities. This would determine further development of the construction sector, and put the problem of waste materials finally under control.