Waste management and recycling opportunities in precast concrete industry

In Turkey, precast concrete industry has gained some amount of sharesin construction market throughout the history, but this amount is stillfar from the international shares of the sector.Precast concrete system, as an industrial construction type, has thecharacteristics of manufacturing disciplines as much as theconstruction domains. This feature enabled the industry to be incontact with quality procedures, therefore the waste managementnotions, within its development. On the other hand, the worldwidedeveloping environmental policies have started to take place atconstruction sector and preference of sustainable constructionmethods became an important input for design processes.In this conceptual framework, this thesis traces the relationship ofprecast construction industry with sustainability, especially withrecycling attitudes and quality notions, for the development of precastindustry in Turkey, and planned to reach findings for the mentionedpurposes.According to this aim, firstly, several waste management applicationsare suggested and the acquisitions gained by these procedures arementioned. At the further parts of the thesis, the recycling opportunitiesof the solid wastes which are released by precast concrete industry areclarified, in the aim of recycling them primarily at the resource.Afterwards, the possibilities to recycle the world wide released solidwaste materials as a feedstock for precast concrete productions areinvestigated and the performances of thus manufactured elements areevaluated.As the waste management and recycling approaches take place inprecast concrete applications, the industry will face its responsibilityagainst environmental facts as well as the acquired commercial andprogressive acquisitions. These features will be beneficial for theprecast concrete sector in Turkey, in order to reach the global shares ofthe industry.