The purpose of this study is to review extensively the literatures associated with the adoption of different novel techniques in Construction Waste Management and Policy (CWMP) to find out the state and development of the construction waste stream and to reveal gaps for further investigations through the exploration of several publications which have emphasis on construction waste management. A cross-referencing examination was performed to ensure the comprehensiveness of the study. All references cited by the selected papers were searched manually, and then the titles of potentially related articles were aggregated into an Excel table to avoid replication. Following a systematic evaluation of the retrieved papers, two characteristic classification criteria of the current literatures were revealed as waste management and waste regulatory or policy. The findings show that there is a substantial growth in the number of studies associated with construction waste which attempts to reveal comprehensive results in the adoption of numerous methods from various perspectives. Nevertheless, there are several areas which need further research in both theoretical and intensive approaches in the empirical aspect to experiment the real application of the proposed methods. This study shows that reuse and recycle rates of construction waste is still minimal which continue to impact the environmental well-being. This review presents future direction and research gaps as well as recommendations on CWMP adoption which will be helpful to academics and professionals that are working or intend to operate in the related area. © 2016, Springer Japan.