Materials Stocks

As per the research by Center for Science and Education, India recycles only 1% of the C and D waste it produces and this is due to the lack of proper estimates of the waste arising out of the buildings, (during construction + post demolition).

We can categorize the C and D waste generated by the city, broadly into three categories: -

• Construction Waste arising out of ongoing constructions
• Demolition waste arising out of the demolitions of the existing buildings
• C &D Waste arising out of the infrastructural construction activities (laying of electrical cables, drainage pipes, etc. road and bridge construction, footpaths and divider constructions, etc.

This problem arises due to varying estimated data available.

Materials Stocks aims at estimating the demolition waste arising out of existing buildings and further mapping these estimates on a Geographical Information System (GIS) enabled spatial map. This estimation will be mapped according to the administrative wards of the city.

• This tool will be therefore be a web, map-based catalogue of all the building materials used in the building and when they will be available for reuse/repurpose.
• This building level, material information will lead to calculating how much demolition waste will be generated by each administrative ward and further the city.

  

The solution will make an impact on the stakeholders of the build environment, primarily from which are the Urban local bodies and construction sector actors. 

The map based catalogue will help in estimating the waste across administrative wards , furthering 

• Developing a robust waste management system across the city (planning the C and D waste recycler feeder plants and other services), by using the spatial data.
• Guidelines to look demolition from the perspective of Resource recovery.
• Mapping the demand of C and D waste for new construction projects as well infrastructural projects like murrum filling for low lying areas, river embankments, retaining walls, etc.
• To deliver a segregated accounting of the waste to avoid mixing.
• Potential to become a part of demolition permits, to declare demolition waste according to its material categories.

Architects/Builders

• Looking at Buildings as Material Banks and wherever possible reusing of existing demolished materials for better economic, environmental and physical impact through material swapping.
• Information on Deconstruction instead of Demolition for resource recovery

Mandar Athavale is an architect by profession and have been involved in the building construction industry for last 05 years, he is an been working with multi-disciplinary teams for the last 02-3 years. He has spear-headed the work of geo-spatial mapping of slums in his last not for profit job and has got enough experience for working with GIS and Geo spatial mapping. He has worked before with the governments as well as having know about the Not for profit sector, he is trying to deviate and create social for profit enterprise.

He is open for collaboration and is in talks with various government professionals like Municipal Corporation, Pollution Control boards, etc. working in the sector. 

We are at an Ideation stage

Documenting the built environment around us, is an aspirational task, but it is a must to deal with the current problem and with soaring real esate prices its must to bring resilient affordable built environment, so apart from raising funds what's most important for me is to connect like minded teams which will help me in this work. 

If my solution get selected, I would like to start creating partnership with various urban local bodies, who potentially further becomes my client further tapping in to the social network for connections with agencies involved in such work.

Looking at the Buildings as Material Banks is the basis of the solution. Material Stocks will solve a crucial problem of illegal dumping, by looking at the waste as resource providing opportunities for material swapping (e.g. Builders/Contractors/Architects will get map based information on how much backfilling material (debris of a demolished building) will be available at which place and of what quantity at what time.) Hence it will answer all the 5W-1H questions for material reuse. 

The Indian C&D waste rules, 2016  mandates all the bulk generators (producing 20T or more in one day) to handle their C&D waste as well as pay tipping charges/Radaroda charges at the time of approvals from the authorities. This penalty based system can easily be transformed into incentive based system with the solution. 

Goal 01: Building the Platform (the geospatial map+ subscription model)

Goal 02: Pitch to potential builders working in the space of residential properties in 15 administrative wards in Pune 

Goal 03

A contractor when constructs/demolishes a building, the output of which is the debris, which is approximately 40-60kg for new construction and 300-500kgs for demolition as per the TIFAC formula and C&D waste guidelines by Government of India. Such huge pile of unsegregated pile of debris ends up nothing but landfills (as per Center for Science and Education, India; India only recycles only 1% of C&D it produces , as Buckminster Fuller says waste is the only resource that we haven't learnt to use.

The estimates with respect to C&D waste are staggering and microlevel data is unavailable. As per Development Alternative ,GIZ, India produces 750 million tonnes per year, while CSE says 530 million tonnes per year , while Ministry of Urban Development says 10-15 million tonnes per year. 

But why a better estimate is important, because then the gap between recycling or reusing and producing will keep widening and so on. All this data metrics lie at single point that are ongoing constructions and ongoing demolitions. Estimates are important and they will keep getting better over time for ongoing demolitions, when triangulated with theoretical assumptions and site level recordings. While the ongoing construction can create repositories of materials used for future use.

The map based information will given exact data on material swapping e.g. X Metric Tonnes of debris is available at 5kms from your construction site, with the point of contacts. As well as the dedicated legal dumping site locations on the map, will help in reducing the need of illegal dumping. 

One of the important tool of Geospatial mapping will be the  base in building up the solution. 

To make it enable we will be using GIS as our base software over which data from remote sensing and photogrammetry will be the based map on which the solution will start building up. As now there would be number of repetitions once the algorithm is been created, AI will be use to multiplicate if for the whole city areas 

The problem of C&D waste is faced by all the countries, some of them are listed below in the image. The solution which we are building is not possible if there are not targeted efforts towards this direction, hence my next steps are the connect with different agencies and nationalities to contribute as well learn after testing for their veracity around them.