Don’t you just hate paying for wasted materials? Visit a typical residential construction site and look in the dumpster. The cost of that house includes all the materials that were not used in its construction as well as those that were. So, all that stuff in the trash raises the cost of your building without providing you with any benefits.
Research indicates that the average residential construction project produces four pounds of waste for every square foot of living space built. For a 2,000-square-foot home, that is 4 tons of waste that usually ends up in the landfill! With simple efforts, that amount of waste can easily be cut by 50 percent. This means that half of the construction and demolition (C&D) waste that is sent to the landfill could be eliminated by not ever being created or by being recycled or reused. How?
Traditional building practices reflect a number of typical waste patterns. Conventional wood framing represents approximately 90 percent of US residential construction and uses 15 to 30 percent more framing materials than are structurally needed. Construction waste accounts for about 40 percent of all waste taken to landfills. These are the same building materials that when harvested destroyed forests, wildlife habitats and other natural resources that provide vital ecosystems. Vast amounts of energy are consumed transporting building materials to local distribution centers, then to retailers and finally to the jobsite.
Many still hold onto the perspective of endless resources and the convenience of a use-what-you-need “throwaway” system, unaware of the long-term effects of these activities. More often than not, construction waste is not even on the radar for designers, builders, construction materials suppliers or site workers. The wasted materials were included in the calculation of the cost to build the home, not considered “extras” or thought of as possible cost savings.
And it’s not just the wasted materials themselves that cost you money- there’s also the cost of waste storage, haul off and dump fees. The cost of everything that goes into that dumpster and how many times the service company has to haul it off to the landfill and replace it onsite with another empty one to be filled again – these costs are usually viewed as “just the cost of doing business.” Awareness and education in better building practices results in significant reductions in construction waste and can amount to substantial cost savings.
