Recycling Challenges
What do you do with all your construction materials? If you have a contractor, they put up a dumpster and you don’t worry about it. Many contractors will reuse and resell the products. (especially now) But what a waste to see brand new products going to landfills! UGG.
So what do you do when you have small remodel projects, don’t have a truck and don’t want to spend $55.00 to make a trip to the dump? It is so easy to put small amounts in the trash. The answer of course is to try to reuse, re-think or repurpose as much as you can.
Things such as bricks, copper parts, countertops, faucets, tile, are very easy to get rid of via places like habitat, freecycle and craigslist. But how much re-purposing can you do with old baseboards, drywall, leftover wood? It’s not just landfill space at a premium and dealing with guilt over putting anything into the landfill, It’s where do you store everything so you can re-think, re-purpose, re-use? Cities such as Encinitas will most probably mandate the recycling of construction debris. Will you get fined? How bad is it to put in 1/2 a trashcan of old wood? All these thoughts – Not to get off on a tangent!
In the case of recycling ignorance is sometimes bliss. I have separate piles of batteries, lightbulbs, eyeglasses, paint, painted wood, baseboard and old electronic parts, cables to go to recycling centers somewhere.
The first thing is to check what your local recycler will take. As an example: King County (WA), and MA have great information on their websites. In California go to California Intergrated Waste Board for the recycler database
You can also go to the EPA for information about your region.
Try Earth 911 and find any recycling center
Here are the materials that can be recycled from construction debris. Always check with you local Waste Management Company as they may take more than this.
| Table 1: C&D Materials and Markets | ||
| Material | How is it recycled? | Recycling Markets |
| Concrete | The material is crushed, the reinforcement bar is removed, and the material is screened for size. | Road base |
| General fill | ||
| Drainage media | ||
| Pavement aggregate | ||
| Asphalt Pavement | The pavement is crushed and recycled back into asphalt, either in-place or at a hot-mix asphalt plant. | Aggregate for new asphalt hot mixes |
| Sub-base for paved road | ||
| Asphalt Shingles | After removal of nails, asphalt shingles are ground and recycled into hot-mix asphalt. | Asphalt binder and fine aggregate for hot mix asphalt |
| Wood | Clean, untreated wood can be re-milled, chipped or ground. | Feed stock for engineered particle board |
| Boiler fuel | ||
| Recovered lumber re-milled into flooring | ||
| Mulch and compost | ||
| Animal bedding | ||
| Drywall | Drywall is typically ground or broken up, and the paper is removed. | Gypsum wallboard |
| Cement manufacture | ||
| Agriculture (land application) | ||
| Metal | Melted down and reformed | Metal products |
| Cardboard | Ground and used in new pulp stock | Paper products |
Just to give you some ideas:
Wood: Go to Estys for birdhouse, signs, chopsticks, jewerly and more
Make Furniture: See Example from the Urban Hardwoods
Lead Pipe Ideas from Eco Artware
Ideas:
Trashformaciones: Wierd website but cool stuff made from trash
Man-orah made from galvanized Steel Plumbing
Shelving from Ryan Frank
Door Knobs as Coat Hangers: I actually did this without the use of bandaids.
Resource:
Alternative Construction Materials: Nice review from Build Smarter