Characterizing the Flows of Construction and Demolition Waste in China

China is still within the stage of rapid urbanization. Due to the scarcity of urban land resources, the large-scale demolition and urban renewal is becoming an important mode of urban construction activities instead of urban expansion, which caused a lot of construction and demolition waste (CDW). Also brought great pressure to the city's environmental protection work. There is relatively little work to focus on the generation characterization of CDW (by geographical distribution) and their flows in national wide. Through official statistics reports, questionnaires and field investigation, our results show that East China contribute the largest ratios to 37% and 27% in construction waste and demolition waste, follow by middle and Southwest China in construction waste (14%) and South China in construction waste (25%). Scrap metals have the highest recovery rate by approximately 100%, and the recycling ratio of plastics is over 80%. To summarize, the results are beneficial to know how to build an efficient management system for CDW.