Waste potential of a building through gate-to-grave approach based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Wastes of buildings constitute a considerable amount of these concerns. Thus, management has to be started in buildings and continue throughout districts and cities level. In this study, a big scale building was investigated based on its current waste management system via LCA methodology to assess waste management strategies through the building's lifetime. Within the developed methodology, the building's wastes were categorized into 3 group as municipal solid waste, wastewater and demolition waste. Firstly, the capacities of all waste types were calculated which were used as input in the developed LCA model. Additionally, existing energy performance model and Building Information Model of the building as well as specifications from Turkish Statistical Institute were utilized. Two indicators were defined to show impact of wastes; cumulative energy demand (CED) and global warming potential (GWP). The energy consumption of the building was included in LCA methodology to compose a comparative scheme between the energy usage of building and energy usage of the building's waste management. The results showed that there was an energy recovery potential from wastes due to recycling processes; nonetheless, this potential was low compared to the building's operational energy. In addition to the CED, overall greenhouse gases release from the waste management strategies affected the environment negatively while there was a reduction potential by recycling processes.