Digital Twin-Enabled Building Demolition Waste Trading: A Demonstrative Case

Abstract

With the increasing demand for housing renovation and demolition, the amount of building demolition waste is rising year by year. However, due to the low recycling and reusing rate, a large proportion of waste is disposed of by landfill, which has a great impact on the environment. In addition, compared with other industries, the level of digitalization and intelligence in the construction industry is still relatively low. Facing these problems, this paper aims to explore a market-oriented circulation channel for building demolition waste and to achieve it from a technical perspective. Firstly, a digital twin-enabled building demolition waste trading workflow is proposed. The digital twin model could integrate, analyze, and display demolition-related data in real time, which is the basis of building demolition waste trading. Through the two-way information sharing mechanism, contractors and recyclers could quickly get in touch and know each other’s products and needs. Secondly, an innovative building demolition waste trading platform has been developed utilizing cutting-edge technologies, including robotics, big data, IoT, and 3D printing. Furthermore, to cater to the diverse needs of various stakeholders, a dedicated management platform for logistics providers and a comprehensive monitoring platform for the government are developed. Note to Practitioners—After decades of development, the building demolition waste recycling technology has become more and more mature. The performance of a variety of recycled products made from building demolition waste has also been recognized by experts and scientific institutions. However, the current recycling and reusing rate of building demolition waste is still at a low level, especially for some undeveloped countries and regions. This is closely related to two weaknesses. One is that there is no mature market-oriented circulation environment that could meet the needs of various stakeholders. The second is that the digitalization and intelligence level of demolition activities and building demolition waste management is low, which makes it difficult to monitor and track the treatment of building demolition waste efficiently and accurately. This has led to a lot of building demolition waste being illegally dumped. Based on this, this research is carried out from two perspectives: market-oriented circulation and exploration of digital technology applications. The workflow and key technologies of building demolition waste trading are discussed first. Then, by integrating and utilizing a variety of advanced technologies, a digital twin-enabled comprehensive building demolition waste trading platform.