A study regarding the environmental impact analysis of the building materials production process (in Turkey)

Because of the negative impact of buildings on the environment, building materials and, particularly, their production process are important factors. However, this impact differs from country to country and according to ecological applications in place at the production plants. Depending on the success rate of these applications, impact on environment during production of building materials is reduced. Turkey plays a major role in production of building materials, and consequently, the impacts of the global environmental problems are also experienced in this country. Therefore, reducing the environmental impact of any kind is a prominent issue, regionally and globally. In this study done in Turkey, production of some building materials commonly used was analysed with regard to their environmental impact through a specifically developed method. As a result, all examined building materials were found successful with 51% in resource efficiency, 52% in energy efficiency, 68% in water efficiency, 62% in waste produced, and 70% in effects on human health. The underlying causes of the environmental impact were discussed in the light of the results of the evaluation. Having a low rating of renewable resource usage adversely affects resource efficiency. The fact that the amount of energy used for transportation for the examined production processes was low had a positive impact on energy efficiency. Because most of the production plants had integrated water treatment systems, the amount of water consumed per unit of material was low. The waste produced in the building material production plants was usually reused as a raw material resource or burnt to generate energy. The production processes do not involve much substance that has negative implications for human health. These data should pave the road to find solutions to reduce the environmental problems caused by building materials. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.