Reduce - Reuse - Reconstruct!

Everyone gets all excited about the green choices on the market these days. Green paint options, green flooring, green cabinets, green doors, green tile, green windows, etc., etc., and more etc. But before any of this cool stuff can be installed in an existing home, something else has to be torn out, and this is where the rubber meets the road when it come to green contracting. Standard practice is to park a huge dumpster in the yard, rip out all the old finishes, and send it all to the landfill. Anyone committed to green practices will be more thoughtful about the process.

            Deconstruction involves taking a structure apart carefully, setting aside what can be reused, sending old fixtures to reuse markets, recycling all metal, sending wood to the chipper for use as mulch, and then and only then making a trip to the dump. I had a job recently where we hauled off over 5 tons of material and barely filled the bottom of our 3 yard dumpster. This is the construction equivalent of home recycling. Those cans dont just go in the trash any more, there are ways of dealing with them that are better for our community.

            There is a price to pay. Deconstruction takes longer than demolition and costs about 20% more in the Boise area (twice the labor but some recoup of cost in dump fees, reused, and resold items). For many quality remodel contractors this is just how they do business. They have the systems in place for separating waste and do this as a matter of course. For a homeowner it will take a little research to figure out who takes what. Heres a short list for the Boise area.

Wood can be chipped at the Ada County Landfill

Metal can be recoiled at Pacific Recycling

Old fixtures can be donated to SecondChanceBuildingMaterialsCenter or, for the internet savvy, listed on Craigs List

Currently there is no drywall grinder in our area 

Reduce  - Reuse - Reconstruct!