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Both developed and developing economies are under enormous environmental pressure due to a significant amount of construction and demolition waste (CDW). This presents urgent need for the recycling CDW. Mobile recycling of CDW has gained growing popularity in recent years, particularly in metropolis with high-dense population. This study aims to assess the environmental impact and benefit associated with the mobile recycling of demolition waste (DW), which was overlooked in previous studies on this topic. Using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a total of 15 mobile recycling projects in Shenzhen were investigated. GIS was employed to measure the real distance to improve the precision of evaluation while social WTP was utilized to transform different impact indicators into a unified monetary value. The total environmental impact and benefit of mobile recycling was 0.42 RMB/ton (about US$0.06/ton) and 2.6454 RMB/ton (about US$0.38/ton) on average respectively. The average value of environmental impact at DW transportation, pretreatment, crushing and screening, residue disposal and recycled aggregate delivery stages was 0.11 (about US$0.02/ton), 0.04 (about US$0.01/ton), 0.16 (about US$0.02/ton), 0.10 (about US$0.02/ton) and 0.13 RMB/ton (about US$0.02/ton) respectively. Global warming potential (GWP) and land occupation (LO) were the top contributors to the total environmental impact. Environmental benefit primarily derived from the avoidance of land occupation. These results draw a comprehensive picture to better understand the mobile CDW recycling that provides a future direction to improve the CDW management. • Mobile recycling of construction and demolition waste is evaluated using LCA and GIS. • Multiple cases were assessed to decrease the dependence on specific project situation. • The mobile recycling of DW in all cases revealed good environmental performance. • GWP and LO were the top contributors to the total environmental impact. • Environmental benefit primarily resulted from avoidance of land occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The construction and demolition waste generation rates (C&D WGRs) is an important factor in decision-making and management of material waste in any construction site. The present study investigated WGRs by conducting on-site waste sorting and weighing in four ongoing construction projects in Shenzhen city of South China. The results revealed that WGRs ranged from 3.275 to 8.791kg/m2 and miscellaneous waste, timber for formwork and falsework, and concrete were the three largest components amongst the generated waste. Based on the WGRs derived from the research, the paper also discussed the main causes of waste in the construction industry and attempted to connect waste generation with specific construction practices. It was recommended that measures mainly including performing waste sorting at source, employing skilful workers, uploading and storing materials properly, promoting waste management capacity, replacing current timber formwork with metal formwork and launching an incentive reward program to encourage waste reduction could be potential solutions to reducing current WGRs in Shenzhen. Although these results were derived from a relatively small sample and so cannot justifiably be generalized, they do however add to the body of knowledge that is currently available for understanding the status of the art of C&D waste management in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]