Recycling Saves Money And The Environment
When it comes to your next construction project, you want to make sure that your process is as environmentally-friendly as possible. It should come as no surprise that we all must do our part if we want to live in a world where the landfills aren’t as full, and energy savings abound.
The future rests in your hands, which is why your building demolition should take recycling into consideration. If you need to be convinced that your historic building demolition needs to maximize recycling, here are a few statistics you should know.
Construction Debris Statistics
Do you know how much waste is generated by your building demolition? In 2018 alone, the EPA estimates that there were 600 million tons of construction and demolition debris generated. Of this amount, demolition specifically represents over 90 percent of the debris total, while new construction makes up for about 10 percent.
These numbers alone are staggering, but it is equally surprising to learn how much of this material ends up in landfills. Over 145 million tons were sent to landfills in the same year. The good news is that there are a few things you can do to minimize the waste generated by your historic building demolition.
Reusing Materials
For those who are serious about minimizing their carbon footprint, the first thing you can do to save the planet and your budget is to reuse construction and demolition materials. In many cases, the materials that are being demoed are still usable. They may be able to serve the same function, or they could be allocated a new life.
If you are demolishing a historic building, reusing materials allows you to take advantage of old-growth forest resources that are in short supply today. It also allows for more job opportunities in the local economy, increased economic activity, and more.
Learning What To Recycle
If you find that you can’t repurpose the building materials you encounter, the next best thing is to breathe new life into them. There is a real market for materials as basic as asphalt, concrete, and even rubble. While they may not seem useful at first glance, recycling them allows them to be transformed into aggregate, asphalt, or new concrete.
Of course, you can also recycle other materials that you come across on a building demolition site, including:
- Wood and engineered wood
- Metals
- Cardboard
All of these products can live a new life under different conditions. There is a genuine market for all of these recycled materials, whether this means that they will be transformed into new pieces of furniture, made into mulch, or put to some other use.
Ensure that your construction and demolition debris will get a new life by hiring a company that also recycles.
Hiring the Right Company
Individuals and businesses dedicated to recycling their debris will want to heavily research the company they hire to discard their materials. When you can, ask whether they have third-party certification and if they comply with state and local regulations.
This answer can often hint at whether your materials will be responsibly recycled rather than dumped unceremoniously into a landfill, never to be seen again.
When you are ready to move forward with your building demolition, you need the help of experts who can remove all of your debris with turn-key efficiency.
E. Luke Greene Demolition is ready and willing to help with your next major construction project. We can offer interior or building demolition with roll-off disposal bins and recycling trucks that allow us to make a bigger impact on the environment when it comes to your job!
