Big Steps in Building: Deconstruct, Don't Demolish
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.14.08
We have stated that the real big step in building would be to ban demolition and renovate, but if the building has to come down, at least it should be deconstructed. The demolition numbers from the US EPA are shocking; Greenstrides summarizes the extent.
Building demolitions account for 48% of the waste stream, or 65 million tons per year; renovations account for 44%, or 60 million tons per year; and 8%, or 11 million tons per year, is generated at construction sites.
In many states there are no regulations on recycling and landfilling is the most common waste management method. Concrete, asphalt, wood, metal, gypsum wallboard, glass, plastics, and roofing get dumped into holes instead of being reused. Almost all of it has some value; as Jim Kunstler writes in World Made By Hand, mining the dumps might be the best gig in town some day. In the meantime, a big step in building might be to make deconstruction and reuse of building materials more common by increasing dumping fees. ::Greenstrides
See Treehugger: Preservation is Sustainability, Big Steps in Building: Ban Demolition Demolition by Neglect: Use It or Lose It
Well, this is covered by LEED. The only next step is to make LEED mandatory.
It's not that I don't disagree with this article, it's just that it would make more sense to find recyclable material once the building gets demolished. Tear the house down first, clean up the debris, then recycle.
Recycling the broken stuff once the place is demolished somewhat is beyond the point. Once it's fully demolished and on the ground little can be reused. Reuse takes less energy than recycling, and I would imagine more can be reused than recycled (think: sinks, tubs, old solid core doors)
Tongue-in-cheek solution: require that houses to be demolished be open to the public during daylight hours for 1 week prior to demolition. Every junkie in the city will be in there stripping out anything of value, down to the wiring.
We live in a neighborhood where lots of houses are torn down to build McMansions (sadly).
I have not seen a single one where the demolition crew didn't spend at least a day or two recycling materials prior to the demolition. Cabinets, windows, wood floors, stone fireplaces/patios (sometimes even brick) and anything else of value.
Well said M. Anderson. That saves the cost of paying someone to tear it down as well.
As much as I would like to see Reuse become the norm, it is just not feasible most of the time. The reason is this, traditional construction (studs, gyp board, paint, asphalt shingles, etc.) are not designed to be reused. Until we rethink the way we put together buildings, this will continue to happen. We must turn to component based systems. Unfortunately, that has been tried by hundreds of architects and designers for close to a century. The most successful of these attempts would be the mobile home, and the reason for that...price, it has to be cheaper than traditional construction to take hold. Also, if a material is salvaged, it will most likely need to be altered, repaired, and stored. Those things all cost money, not to mention the extra hours of careful disassembly and sorting. And money is the number one thing a contractor or developer thinks about. Building plans not only need to show how a building goes together, but they should show how they come apart.
dont demolish the house, just give it to me :)
hows that for 100% recycling
...p.s. the land comes with it