This is a guest post by Dave Bennink, owner of Re-Use Consulting.

I recently was asked to speak at the California Resource Recovery Association Conference in Palm Springs.  I know, Palm Springs, it sounds like a vacation, but the high for each day was 112 degrees.  Anyway, this year’s theme was ‘zero-waste’.  The CRRA had asked me to discuss building deconstruction in the context of it helping to achieve zero waste goals in many California cities.  It caused me to pause and think about what zero waste means and how to achieve it.  I came up with a couple of interesting points.

Betraying the mission:

Some of the projects that I have been involved with or have read about that have strived for zero-waste or very high diversion rates may have succeeded in doing so, but at what cost?  It may have taken weeks to accomplish and cost much more than demolition.  Therefore, even though the project stands as an example of what is possible, the general public may see this as confirming their belief that building deconstruction (and perhaps other green building methods) cost too much and take too long. 

Looking at this another way, we see that the single project may divert 70 tons from the landfill during

Is this going to a site or from one?

its 3.6 week schedule.  A less agressive approach that we frequently follow would divert 60 tons in 1.2 weeks or 180 tons during the same 3.6 week schedule.  So, in the end, who is closer to zero-waste? 

There are different ways to achieve zero-waste, by achieving zero-waste on one project and building off of that and using it as a bar that others can reach, or to achieve high-diversion on 10 projects at a cost-competitive price and time-sensitive schedule.  In the end, we really do need the zero-waste projects to push us forward, we just need them to admit that we still have a ways to go before achieving zero-waste on a regular basis. 

Designing for disassembly:

When planning our presentation, we reviewed past projects that we had completed and sent the materials in three directions: reuse, recycling and disposal.  Our focus was on how we could have eliminated the disposal category on projects performed in the ‘real world’.  Our conclusion was that if we design waste into a structure, it is not surprising that we get waste out of projects. 

Designing for disassembly is a movement in architecture to admit that their structures will likely not live out their entire lifespan and that when the building is removed someday in the future, the materials that make up that structure will be worth harvesting and that the design should favor this disassembly.  The more fasteners, ADHESIVES, and other waste producing or labor consuming building systems that are battled when the building is taken apart, the more unlikely that deconstruction will be a viable choice for building removal. 

Having deconstructed 500 structures in the last 16 years, RE-USE Consulting has gained a unique perspective on this problem and is moving ahead with its own solutions to be applied to today’s buildings.  We hope that tomorrow’s buildings will be made of reusable panels that can be reused and are perhaps constructed on multiples of 16″ or 24″, floating floor panels, paneling set in channels with fewer fasteners, and well thought out use of adhesives.  

I have seen what zero waste looks like.  It is an amazing thing.  Imagine a job site where the building was removed and the stacks of materials sitting on the ground confuse the passer-by.  Is a building about to be built, or did it just come down? 

Should we focus first on zero-waste, or should we focus on increasing the percentage of materials that are diverted for reuse?  In the end, the reuse of materials can be many times better than simply recycling them due to the preservation of energy, job creation associated with it, and from resource conservation.

When I was a kid, I remember buying stacks of colorful paper for projects. Despite my best intentions, I’d use a few sheets and the rest would - I’m guessing - end up in the recycling bin.

A Portland nonprofit knows this phenomenon and is targeting those stacks of paper

Courtesy of SCRAP

- or your extra office supplies - and turning it into a community benefit.

SCRAP, or the School & Community Reuse Action Project, was founded in 1998 by teachers who didn’t want to throw extra classroom material away. The organization takes donations of office supplies (for which you receive a tax write-off) and then sells the material to crafty people or to schools. It diverts 65,000 pounds of material each year from landfills, and also provides art and environmental activity outreach.

With the recent recession, more and more people have been looking for cheaper forms of entertainment and SCRAP has seen more business. But an e-mail I received last week says it has been so busy that it is running out of supplies.

If you have been looking for a way to get rid of old calculators or letterhead from 1980, this might be a good tip for you.

A number of items are flying off SCRAP’s shelves. They include out-of-date letterhead, unique paper stock and interesting fabric and yarn. Recent popular items have been X-ray images from head scans and old fencing masks.

Other items on the organization’s wish list include: mannequin parts, calculators, staplers, hole punches, paper cutters, spools of wire, PVC pieces, certain promotional items, small discontinued accent items, coasters, jewelry and bead bits and “shiny, sparkly stuff.”

For more information, visit SCRAP’s Web site at http://scrapaction.org/.

This is a guest posts by Dave Bennink, owner of Re-Use Consulting. 

When I started deconstructing buildings in 1993, we certainly made efforts to recycle metals we found at our jobsites (as well as other recyclable materials). The money we made was used for important purposes like company gumball machines or a used jobsite radio to replace the one that was driven over by the forklift (with my Abba cassette tape in it).

Frankly, the $123.45 we collected didn’t compare to the $1,234.56 we received from flooring sales but we did it anyway.

Then China started buying up recycling commodities and the price went through the

Metal recycling pile

roof.  All of the sudden everyone was recycling. They recycled their cans and pie tins, their flashing and pipe, and unfortunately their neighborhood street signs and electrical substation equipment. We had never had so much interest in our jobsites (I mean after we had left for the day). We were even getting ripped off by grannies in electric wheelchairs towing 3 cubic yard metal recycling bins.

When demand increased the scrap prices, supplies steadily rose with it. Local recycling companies bought up scrap and laid out thousands to do so. When the demand for steel suddenly fell so did the price paid, and that amount actually dropped from $300/ton to $20/ton. Our local recyclers were stuck with metal that they couldn’t sell for as much as they bought it for and the lack of demand meant some had months worth of stock on hand. This series of events led to some metal recyclers cutting back and others closing up shop altogether. 

I had a chat with Dave Whitley of Nuprecon and found out that this has also affected contractors.  He said that they were giving building owners a break by lowering their bid price after factoring in the value of the metals found within the building.  When prices suddenly dropped, demolition companies were left ‘out in the cold’.  Whitley also informed me that other markets including even cardboard had experienced similar drops and that it was all caused by our current complex financial problems and demand issues overseas.

What can we do to help?  In many ways the Northwest is a national leader in green building and materials recycling.  When prices were high, we were all benefiting.  So when prices dropped, we shouldn’t allow anyone to be left out in the cold.  They say that for one of us to prosper, we all must prosper.  The recycled commodities market is beginning to recover, and I suggest we look to groups like the Northwest Chapter of the Construction Materials Recycling Association to tell us how we can help and how to avoid problems in the future. 

We have worked hard to make recycling a common practice here in the Northwest, and we can’t allow temporary drops in the price to change that.  So support your local reuse and recycling companies.  They are working everyday to create jobs, preserve natural resources, and save precious energy and they are counting on you to help.

Dave Bennink, Reuse Consulting