Best Practices for the Reduction of Air Emissions From Construction ...

CHEMINFO
3. Index of Actions to Mitigate Emissions
from the Construction and Demolition Sector
3.1 Introduction
The construction and demolition sector is a very
diverse industry with project sites ranging in
size from single family dwelling additions to
multi-billion dollar heavy engineering projects.
In addition, emissions occur at many different
stages during construction and demolition
operations, irrespective of the size and scope of
the project. These and other factors result in
challenges in presenting a Best Practices
document that is comprehensive and
representative of all potential construction
situations, while being reader-friendly and
concise.
Many of the work practices and technologies
that are identified and described in this Best
Practices document can be applied irrespective
of the size and scope of the construction and
demolition project. For example, most of the
actions to address dust emitted from storage
piles can be applied at just about any
construction site. Therefore, it is useful to
identify and describe the practices/technologies
contained in this document according to
emission sources. This should allow readers to
quickly scan the Table of Contents and identify
the pages in the Best Practices document where
actions to mitigate emissions from specific
sources can be found. This presentation also
ensures that the Best Practices document is kept
concise (i.e., avoids repeating the same
practices).
One of the challenges associated with grouping
and describing the work practices/technologies
by emissions source is that there are some
differences between the PM mitigation options
that can be utilized by different segments of the
industry. For instance, some actions that may be
applicable to road construction companies are
not relevant for firms that are building
residential homes.
It is difficult to identify where these distinctions
are located within the Best Practices document
when the practices/technologies are grouped by
emission source. The Construction and
Demolition Multi-stakeholder Working Group
recommended that some method be applied to
the Best Practices document to allow those in
the industry to quickly identify which work
practices/technologies are most relevant for their
particular operations.
As a result, a series of cross-referenced tables
have been prepared and presented in this
chapter. These tables enable various
construction firms to quickly identify the
practices/technologies that are relevant for their
operations. The utilization of this approach has
allowed the various work practices to be
presented in this Best Practices document both
by emission source as well as by construction
and demolition segment.
3.2 Presentation of Cross-
Referenced Tables
The segmentation of the construction industry
that has been chosen for this document is as
follows:
• Residential Building Construction
Operations;
• Industrial, Commercial and Institutional
Construction Operations;
• Road-building and Other Heavy
Construction Operations; and
• Demolition and Deconstruction.
The work practices/technologies that are
relevant for firms within these segments are
presented in tables on the following four pages.
Note that the use of pollution prevention
practices to mitigate emissions are preferred and
consequently these options have been bolded in
the various tables.
Best Practices for the Reduction of Air Emissions From Construction and Demolition Activities 4