The historical importance of the construction industry in the constant improvement of society s quality of life is undeniable. A major source of employment, it accounts for twenty percent of all U.S. economic activity, and in Brazil, in 2008, it represented 8.9 percent of the GDP; in 2000 it consumed 210 million tons of natural aggregates. These figures express the sector s strategic need justifying investments in research for its sustainability, which is currently less than 1 percent from the U.S. government and 6 percent in Europe. There are thousands of sustainable building techniques and methodologies, as well as those for the treatment and reuse of construction waste in urban centers. This article aims to organize, in a summarized way, these procedures to reduce generation and treat construction waste in Rio de Janeiro, making suggestions for sustainable processes in the idealization, design and implementation phases of a new development and the reverse logistics for treating waste and reintegrating it into the production chain. In chapter two the study suggests the use of the Life Cycle Assessment (ACV) tool during new developments idealization phases for a broad overview of the environmental impact of their execution, during the use of the developments until their final disposal. Research shows that maintenance costs in a development s utilization phase represent more than eighty percent of its entire life span. The ACV study qualifies knowledge of sizing, materials specifications and construction techniques, as well as routines for use of developments. It adjusts its viability guiding developments toward sustainable principles, for example, low power consumption settings, minimizing the use of natural resources, parameters for diversity of materials being used, the impact of the use of assembly and/or mounting adhesives that hinder selective disassembly for reuse, and the importance of planning deconstruction ahead of time in order to reuse materials; these factors are crucial in the quest for sustainability in the sector. Chapter three brings an analysis of this waste, its impact potential in urban areas, major generating sources, and a summary of the main Brazilian laws and resolutions regulating its management. By listing the main sources generating waste and scrap in construction, attention is drawn to the selective deconstructions of yesteryear that reused materials. Made viable by the construction techniques used at that time in these buildings that allowed the selective removal of material. Also in chapter three, an example of a current certified demolition in downtown Rio de Janeiro is presented. Finally, it shows the general composition of waste and its classifications according to CONAMA (the National Environment Council) and NBR (Brazilian Technical Standards Association) 10,004. Chapter four provides an overview of construction waste management in large cities, in Rio de Janeiro it is evident that two distinct types of waste generators exist in constructions: the first is the generator in construction works with installed and licensed construction sites, which follow the standards and technical requirements for waste selection from generation to transportation under joint liability during the whole process until the final destination, in accordance with CONAMA s resolutions; these generators are monitored throughout the process. Yet the second, the generator in small construction works and renovation without installed construction sites, they do not comply with waste management standards and requirements, they use the same bucket to carry all classes of mixed waste, with no responsibility for the segregation and final disposal. Most often these wastes are dumped in illegal transshipment areas, mostly in protected areas. This widespread practice under the pretext of lack of segregation space in the civil work is endorsed by the lack of an urban policy to empower and require waste segregation at source and its reprocessing. The segment of small generators is responsible for contributing over 50 percent of waste generated in the city, and for almost all of the total pollution generated by construction waste, due to their crude mixtures that cannot be recycled and untreated transshipments into nature. Thus this study focuses on studying a suggestion for waste segregation logistics and recycling for this second group of generators. Chapter five dissects the formula: (Sustainability = Effective projects + Waste reutilization). Efficient projects, civil works with low waste generation and waste elimination is the way toward sustainability in the sector. In some regions of Brazil, the loss reaches 33 percent as opposed to the world average of 10 percent. Several factors rooted in the country s culture of raw material abundance are mentioned. There is still a lack of sustainable efficiency concern in national projects, of doing more using fewer natural resources, using construction methods to lower the impact on the use and disposal of materials in the process.