SolutionProposal

Civil Engineers Playing A Bigger Role in Sustainability
Solution Proposal
By
Madison Evans
Final Report
To
William D. Coombs, BCE, P.E.
CE-2090
Professional Aspects of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
Spring Semester, 2016

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Introduction
This paper will focus on proposing a solution to how civil engineers can play a bigger
role in achieving sustainability. Civil engineers are constantly in relationship with the natural and
built environment and the way the two environments are combined needs to be a priority. There
are better ways to design infrastructures, roads, water systems, bridges, and waste systems while
keeping in mind how the surrounding natural environment will be effected. Humans, animals,
and plants of all kind share this Earth, but the civil engineers are responsible for sustaining the
natural environment while still allowing people to live the comfortable lives they do. Engineers
are trained in the profession to put the safety of the public paramount, and then follow the
client’s wants for a cost efficient project. There is another factor that engineers, especially civil
engineers, now must hold paramount, which is the environment. The environment is how we get
our food, air, sunlight, water and all necessities to live. As natural resources run out and
renewable resources are also dwindling, it is time to keep living, but manipulate the built
environment to better coexist with the one Earth that was given.
Why sustainability is important
There are many environmental issues that have come to the public’s attention in the last few
years compared to the decades before. The environmental issues that are priority are global
warming, creating clean energy, restoring the world’s oceans and water sources, preventing
pollution, providing clean water, food security, and just designing more urban, sustainable
communities (National Resource Defense Council). Civil engineers design, create, manipulate,
and re-build on the land everyday. The necessary infrastructures like roads, buildings, and water
treatment plants that are created by civil engineers consume a major amount of energy and

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resources. These infrastructures can be redesigned to give back to the world and play a less
harmful part in the environment. The manipulations of materials will most likely expensive, but
as the Earth becomes over populated, the water is unsanitary, the land to produce food
significantly decreases, and the hole in the ozone layer widens, then the move towards
sustainability will seem worth the cost.
Money should not get in the way of projects that, from a utilitarianism viewpoint,
provides the absolute best outcome for the well-being of all members of this Earth. Without this
earth, life would not be possible. In that case, all measures should be taken in order to sustain
wildlife, clean water, clean air, land, and all aspects of the natural environment.
Photo catalytic Cement
As the population steadily increases, more cars are on the road, and the exhaust from
those cars are emitting even more pollution into the air. The air pollution is major component in
the climate change by increasing the impact of the greenhouse effect. It also causes minor and
deadly respiratory problems for people that live in high air pollution areas like dense, high traffic
cities. Constructing buildings and roads out of a material called photocatalytic cement would
reduce the smog in the air. The photocatalytic cement has a titanium dioxide base that, when hit
with sunlight, breaks down the pollution attached to its surface into neutralized molecules. The
neutralized molecules are usually oxygen, water, carbon dioxide, nitrate, and sulfate. Pollution
plus sunlight put through the photocatalysis process gives off clean byproducts that are needed
by the earth. Not only does the air become cleaner, but also the buildings that use the
photocatalytic cement stay clean because there is no smog building up on it. The clean buildings
are aesthetically pleasing to the public and require less maintenance, which saves money.

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The photocatlytic cement is not an untested product either. It has been proved to work in
a case study in the Netherlands. The photocatalytic cement was paved onto a section of a very
busy road and the air quality in the area was measured in a regularly paved road section
(control), and the test section. Other observed components were traffic intensity, NO, NOⁿ and
ozone concentrations, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and the visible
and UV light irradiance. Everyday the nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the air were measured in the
control and test groups. According to an article written by M. M. Ballari and H. J. Brouwers, the
study showed that on average, there was a 19% decrease in air pollution levels in the test section
compared to the control section of the road. Also, with the most ideal weather conditions of low
humidity and high radiation, the photocatalytic cement could generate a 45% decrease in NOx
levels in the air. One change in building materials could practically cut the air pollutions levels in
half.
Sustaining Clean Water Levels
As water resources steadily decline, innovative ideas to replenish this renewable resource
before it is completely gone are constantly being formed. A very favorable idea in the
engineering world right now are Green Infrastructures (GI) which can be tied to all aspects of
civil engineering, like water management and sewage systems. GI provides solutions in many
different fields, like allowing resources to regenerate, improve the life of the wild animals and
humans, and recover the failing water systems. Global warming is causing an excess of floods as
the polar ice caps melt and the heated atmosphere is able to evaporate, hold, and release a much
greater amount of water with more force. The atmosphere then takes longer to recharge to allow
for more water to be evaporated, which results in no rain and extended droughts that destroy

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land. It is necessary for civil engineers to develop Green Infrastructures in order to restore the
natural flow of the ecosystem and save the most important resource, water, which is dire for all
living bodies on earth.
One major way that civil engineers can increase their role in sustainability is to design
infrastructures that can best accommodate green vegetation and other plant forms. The buildings
will have to be designed to hold the constant distributed load of growing vegetation. Having
buildings covered in vegetation not only naturally filters all water that passes through it, making
the water cleaner, but it also reverses the excessive amounts of flood and drought and the
damage that comes with them. The vegetation absorbs storm water, which reduces the chances of
the sewage system flooding or storm runoff damaging surrounding fields or major water sources.
The water absorbed by the vegetation is evaporated later on, which saves the some of the
surrounding wildlife and other water sources from being excessively drained. When civil
engineers incorporate new ways to add vegetation and green life to infrastructures, it not only
gets the job of producing a product for humans to use, but also cleans up the environment
simultaneously.
Green roofs do not only clean up the water supply, but also filter the air supply by storing
polluting molecules like particulate matter (PM), NOx, SO2 , CO and O3. The vegetation on the
roofs stores absorbs the surplus carbon in the air and yields oxygen back out into the atmosphere.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere, is partly caused by increased levels of carbon
dioxide in the air. The layer of plants becomes a bed of insulation on buildings, and reduces
energy usage due to heating or cooling. This is a cost-effective, energy efficient, and green way
for civil engineers to help achieve sustainability.

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Recycle Materials
Recycling bins are given out to citizens of cities and they are expected to recycle plastic,
paper, cardboard, and aluminum metal from their homes. At grocery stores, there is a box outside
for shoppers to recycle their shopping bags or the store does not even allow grocery bags.
Recycling is the new frontier, so the same should be done with materials from infrastructures or
any other kind of systems that have been built and are no longer functioning or effective. Instead
of mining new ores and other resources to smelt into useable materials, abandoned materials can
be refurbished and used in new projects. By not just going out into nature and taking the natural
resources that are wanted to be used, it forces the civil engineers to think of alternate, more earth
friendly materials to when constructing these infrastructures. The main components used in
engineering projects are steel and concrete, which both produce very high levels carbon and take
an incredible amount of energy to be put into useable form. More recently, recycling concrete
has become a point of focus because not only is important for sustainability, but also cuts
construction costs down significantly.
In West Lafayette, Indiana, civil engineers are tying to perfect the perfect way to use
recycled concrete. When roads need to be repaved, concrete is chipped away from the street and
that concrete can be crushed back down into aggregate and recycled back into functional
concrete. Tests are still being conducted to decide what the best mixture of recycled concrete is
best to maximize efficiency of the road in freezing and hot temperatures. In recycling the
concrete, energy is saved from mining, processing, and transporting the aggregate from site to
site. The recycling process can usually take place very close to where the project is done, which
reduces the amount of driving being done, and cuts down on air pollution, too.

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Recycling is not a new concept, but recycling infrastructure materials is becoming more
prevalent. These recycled building materials from systems and infrastructures are being saved
from filling landfills, which is very good for the environment. Concrete does not degrade in a
landfill, so it just sits there, taking up space and land that is needed for the growing world
population. The current landfills of the world are filled with copious amounts concrete, steel,
aluminum, and many other useful materials that are going to waste while the exact products are
being manufactured daily.
Educate the Public
The public has a general idea of what global warming is and that ways like recycling can
help counteract it, but how many of them actually believe it? The civil engineers need to
properly educate people on everything that global warming is, what caused it, how it effects the
earth and the people, the time frame in which it will happen, and ways to prevent it. Teaching
everyday people ways to prevent pollution, destroying wildlife, not wasting water, and recycling
can make the difference of what this earth will look like 100 years. Painting a picture that
everyone can see is crucial in continuing on with sustainability in future. There are future civil
engineers in the younger population of the public that need to be educated and prepared for how
to handle sustainability. If these future civil engineers cannot see the vision of why going green
is imperative for the ecosystem then all of this would have been for no reason. The work needs to
be continued on for years to come. This earth will not be back to normal in a few years. It will
take time, dedication, patience, and leaders who know what the big picture is and how the world
is going to get there.

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Conclusion
Money should not get in the way of projects that, from a utilitarianism viewpoint,
provides the absolute best outcome for the well-being of all members of this Earth. Without this
earth, there would be nothing. In that case, all measures should be taken in order to sustain
wildlife, clean water, clean air, land, and all aspects of the natural environment. In education the
youth and the general public, it can be reassured that sustainability projects will be continued in
the future. When the public understands the big picture of what is truly going on with global
warming, and how civil engineers plan to counteract it, they will be able to take on their own
small parts in helping. Sustainability is what the main focus is right now, because without all of
the natural resources that the ecosystem depends on, no other issues matter. Money, wars, or lies
will not matter when there is no life on earth because sustainability was found unimportant and
failed. When civil engineers change the way they build this world, there is a positive outcome for
every organism involved.

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Works Cited:
Ballari, M. M., and H. J. Brouwers. "Full Scale Demonstration of Air-purifying
Pavement." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of
Medicine, 15 June 2013. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Ballari%2BMM%5BAuthor%5D>.
Fisher, Harvey, and David M. Findlay. "Exploring The Economics Of Mining Landfills." Waste
360. Penton, 1 July 1995. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
<http://waste360.com/mag/waste_exploring_economics_mining>.
"Good Economic Sense." Concrete Recycling Home. Construction & Demolition Recycling
Association, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. <http://www.cdrecycling.org/concrete-recycling>.
"Green Infrastructure." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 2014. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure>.
Haluzan, Ned Haluzan. "Pollution Articles." How Does Air Pollution Affect Our
Environment? Blogger, 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<http://pollutionarticles.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-does-air-pollution-affects-our.html>.
Ochsendorf, J. A. "Sustainable Engineering: The Future of Structural Design."Sustainable
Engineering: The Future of Structural Design (n.d.): n. pag.ASCE Library. ASCE, 2005.
Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
<http://courses.washington.edu/cee380/ochsendorf.pdfhttp://courses.washington.edu/cee3
80/ochsendorf.pdf>.
"Recycling Concrete." How to Recycle Concrete. ConcreteNetwork.com, n.d. Web. 09 Apr.
2016. <http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/demolition/recycling_concrete.htm>
Venere, Emil. "University News Service." Concrete Recycling May Cut Highway Construction
Cost, Landfill Use. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110421OlekConcrete.html>.
"Why Does Climate Change Lead to More Floods and Droughts? | Climate Reality." Why Does
Climate Change Lead to More Floods and Droughts? | Climate Reality. The Climate
Reality Project, 5 Oct. 2011. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/why-does-climate-change-lead-more-floods-
and-droughts>.

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