Opportunities from Disaster: The Case for Using The Circular Economy in Debris Management

Following a grounded theory research model, the research uncovered and presented the state of debris recycling to a national association of demolition contractors to measure their willingness and attitudes towards the growing trend in the circular economy and adapting their business models to incorporate it into their own contracts. The first part was finding the deficiencies in the current model based on government reports and through interviews with county-level emergency managers. Second, successful businesses that already use the circular economy design in their operations were used as exemplars to emulate and their opinions and suggestions were discussed. The outputs of the emergency managers and the successful businesses was folded into the third phase of the research with surveys to the membership of the National Demolition Association (NDA) with multiple-choice, scalar questions and open-ended, opinion-heavy questions throughout. The findings were reported back to the head of the partnering organization, the NDA, to focus outreach, training, and policy advocacy concentration for the national organization as a whole, but to related and tangentially-connected industries to their own.