Opportunities from Disaster: The Case for Using the Circular Economy in Debris Management
Abstract
Hurricanes generate a tremendous amount of damage, and the debris volume is on such a scale, most municipal waste management streams cannot accommodate the flux of incoming material. Since getting back to normal operations is a planning imperative, sorting and reclaiming resources gets pushed to “later”. Herein lies the problem that disaster waste management (DWM) has no durable sustainable business model for the team of government regulator and cleanup contractor. The purpose of this interdisciplinary research study was to develop, through grounded theory discovery, best practices and regulations for government planners and cleanup contractors to adopt sustainable resource reclamation as the standard protocol in hurricane prone and by extension, other disaster areas. The first question is what incentives are going to drive cleanup contractors to adopt sustainable resource reclamation practices? Second, if speed is the primary driver to cleanup success, then what support is necessary to facilitate a speedier and more sustainable protocol? Further research looked at how the circular economy (CE) is gaining traction for resource supply professionals everywhere, so application in the DWM arena is the next, logical step in the right direction. The study utilized emergency planning specialists’ interviews, iterative surveys of cleanup contractors, and snapshot analyses of the reclaimed resource market. The end goal of this research was to update the regulatory framework for DWM with applications in the regular, municipal waste management environment.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Ewakil, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Sustainability|Environmental Health|Management|Public administration
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