ABSTRACT
Construction materials, like sand, gravel, murram, lime, gypsum, and stone, are fundamental raw materials for construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, buildings, utilities, and other infrastructure. However, these materials have long been neglected in academic, policy, and development discourses, and little data are available on the sustainability of extraction at local, regional, national, and global scales. This chapter discusses the nexus between construction materials and infrastructure, and the implications for sustainable development, particularly in developing countries, and the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). Despite their relative abundance, the availability and sustainability of the extraction of construction materials are in question in many parts of the world. Over-extraction of construction materials from localities where they play an active role in the ecology (e.g., rivers, coasts, and lakes) can pose a significant challenge regarding the attainment of the SDGs.
On the other hand, the quarrying of construction materials is a huge driver of local employment, with the sector dominated by domestically owned small and medium-sized enterprises. The presence of large numbers of artisanal and small-scale miners offers both development opportunities, including income and livelihoods, and challenges, in the form of the presence of child labour and occupational health and safety risks. To ensure the sector’s sustainability and align the industry with the SDGs, alternative sources of construction materials are investigated, such as recycling construction and demolition debris and re-use of mine tailings and oil and gas cuttings. Examples are shared of local manufacture of cobblestones for the paving of roads and the broader potential of labour-intensive infrastructure development in the developing world.
