A study on identifying demolition and renovation contractors using industrial waste control sheet data to detect unreported asbestos related constructions

Abstract

To identify demolition and renovation contractors using industrial waste control sheet data with the aim of detecting unreported asbestos-related constructions, two methods were examined: one was using asbestos-containing waste as an indicator, and the other was using cluster analysis to identify demolition and renovation contractors. Both methods were capable of detecting contractors, however, the latter method more frequently misidentified other types of contractors, such as building contractors, compared to the former. The former method proved to be more effective than the latter, suggesting that monitoring asbestos-containing waste discharge can be an effective countermeasure to detect the unreported constructions. Furthermore, the results indicated that several issues must be addressed to apply these methods in practice, including the lack of key information necessary to accurately match contractors across different datasets.