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A 880 VOLUME 111 | NUMBER 16 | December 2003 Environmental Health Perspectives Environews Focus Art Disc

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Page 1: 111N16 Focus RPP - planet.uwc.ac.za

A 880 VOLUME 111 | NUMBER 16 | December 2003 • Environmental Health Perspectives

Environews Focus

Art

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Across the country, deconstruction activityappears to be on the rise as markets for con-

struction and demolition (C&D) wastes emergeand specialty contractors enter the business.Deconstruction has often been described as “con-struction in reverse.” Whereas demolition yields amixed pile of debris from which some items (forexample, scrap metal) may be picked out for recy-cling, deconstruction involves the selective andsystematic disassembling of buildings with thespecific goal of generating a supply of materialssuitable for reuse. The health and safety aspects ofdeconstruction are still being documented, but

deconstruction has numerous potential environ-mental benefits over demolition, and, being morelabor-intensive, it can provide relatively morejobs. In terms of human health and safety, becauseit involves more direct human contact with haz-ardous materials and situations, deconstruction ispotentially more hazardous than demolition andmust be pursued with caution.

Deconstruction goes back at least as far as theRoman Empire. Records describe how Romanengineers reused stones from their road system inthe building of new roads. “Deconstruction wasactually the norm for many centuries, as peoplemade use of old building materials to renovate orrebuild,” says Charles Kibert, director of the M.E.Rinker, Sr., School of Building Construction at theUniversity of Florida.

It has only been in the modern era, Kibert says,when landfill space has been plentiful and rawmaterials cheap, that demolition—knocking downstructures without regard for reusing the compo-nents—has become the rule. Today, it’s no longer

uncommon to knock down massive structures thatare barely 30 years old. For example, shoppingmalls that have become “outdated” are routinelytorn down and replaced by new, bigger malls.

Exactly how much C&D waste is generatedeach year is a matter of considerable speculation. A1998 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) report titled Characterization of Building-Related Construction and Demolition Debris in theUnited States estimated that about 136 milliontons of building-related C&D debris was generat-ed in 1996. William Turley, executive director ofthe Construction Materials Recycling Association

(CMRA), estimates that figure to now be at least150 million tons, not including the millions oftons coming from road, bridge, and airport con-struction and renovation.

Although there are no hard figures on the sub-ject, anecdotal data suggest the pendulum hasbegun to swing away from demolition and backtoward deconstruction in the last decade. NeilSeldman is president of the WashingtonD.C.–based Institute for Local Self-Reliance(ILSR) and coauthor of the ILSR publicationDeconstruction: Salvaging Yesterday’s Buildings forTomorrow’s Sustainable Communities. In the July2000 issue of the recycling magazine BioCycle, heand coauthor Mark Jackson, an ILSR researcherand program director, cited dozens of decon-struction projects across the country, includingmilitary bases in California and a public housingproject in Connecticut. “If deconstruction werefully integrated into the U.S. demolition indus-try, which takes down about 200,000 buildingsannually,” they wrote, “the equivalent of 200,000

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FOR THE ENVIRONMENTUNBUILDING

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jobs would be created and $1 billion worthof building materials would be returned tothe economy.”

Method Instead of MadnessSeveral factors are driving the shift towarddeconstruction. Landfill space is becomingscarce in many parts of the country, as exist-ing landfills reach capacity and new onesbecome hard to site. Tighter environmentalstandards have forced the closure of manyexisting landfills and made it more costly tobuild new ones. Landfills that receive onlyC&D wastes are not subject to the samestrict federal requirements as municipal solidwaste landfills. However, many states haveimposed or are considering imposingrequirements on new C&D landfills, rang-ing from the installation of impermeable lin-ers to monitoring of groundwater forleachate.

As a result of these constraints, tipping(dumping) fees at landfills have increaseddramatically in recent years. In a 2000report titled Overview of Deconstruction inSelected Countries, published by theInternational Council for Research andInnovation in Building Construction,Kibert and coauthor Abdol Chini, also of

the Rinker School of Building Construc-tion, stated that tipping fees increasednationally in the United States from anaverage of $9.09 to $38.60 per ton between1985 and 1996. In some urban areas suchas San Francisco, tipping fees can reach$110.00 per ton.

At the same time, the value of certainmaterials salvaged from old buildings hasincreased, and people are paying a premiumfor particular architectural elements. “A lotof people are demanding heart-of-pine floor-ing, old bricks, and old mantelpieces,” saysDavid H. Griffin, Jr., vice president of theGreensboro, North Carolina–based D.H.Griffin Wrecking Company. “You can’t get alot of this material new.”

Faced with rising costs of disposal, cou-pled with the opportunity to recoup coststhrough the sale or reuse of salvaged materi-als, private industry has become increasinglyactive in deconstruction. Consider a job sitein Winston-Salem, North Carolina, whereD.H. Griffin deconstructed 20 44,000-square-foot tobacco warehouses made ofsteel and wood. The company salvaged allthe steel and all the wood beams for reuse.Wood that could not be salvaged was groundup and sold as boiler fuel. All the concrete

was ground up and crushed onsite to be usedas a road base. The company directly pre-pares and sells much of the material theyrecover, cutting out the middleman’smarkup. “All in all, we were able to reuseapproximately eighty-five percent of [eachof ] the buildings,” says Griffin. “And wewere able to keep about four thousand tonsof material out of the local landfill.”

Demolition contractors such as D.H.Griffin offer turnkey services from the plan-ning stages of deconstruction to the actualsale of salvaged materials. “We’ve conductedover thirteen thousand projects around thecountry, virtually all of which have involvedsome salvage of materials,” Griffin says. “I’dsay about fifty percent of these jobs wouldclassify as deconstruction jobs.”

Nonprofit companies such as TheReBuilding Center in Portland, Oregon,have cropped up to take advantage of the taxwrite-offs available through the donation ofsalvaged materials. The ReBuilding Centertakes donations of used building materialsfrom private contractors and sells them backto individuals for use in new and renovatedstructures. This kind of service has spawnedthe growth of contractors, such asDeConstruction Services, a division of The

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A quick and dirty solution. In traditional demolition, structures are knocked down with little regard for reusing the components. But unless a buildingis put together with an eye toward eventual deconstruction, demolition may be the only way to take it apart.

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ReBuilding Center that specializes in decon-structing residential and small commercialbuildings.

Many private companies are involved inthe recycling of C&D materials. The CMRAestimates there are slightly more than 3,100concrete and asphalt recycling plants in thecountry, about 600 single-material or mixed-waste recycling facilities, and several dozeneach of asphalt shingle and gypsum recyclers.

Along with rising disposal costs has comepressure by local governments for industry toreduce the flow of waste. A growing numberof local governments have passed ordinancesrequiring haulers to recycle a minimumamount of C&D wastes or banning certainwastes from county landfills. For example,Orange County, North Carolina, has anordinance that requires haulers operating inthe county to demonstrate that they are recy-cling a minimum amount of C&D materi-als. Catawba County, North Carolina, bansthe disposal of wood waste in its landfills.

In response, markets for C&D materialshave increased. Concrete has long been recy-cled into aggregate as a base material for roadsand parking lots. New technologies in crush-ing and grinding have made that practice farmore economical. “The trend has been tomake crushing and grinding machinery

portable so you can reuseconstruction materials rightonsite,” says Mark Friedrich,manager of recycled productsat Shoosmith Brothers, a pri-vate landfilling company inChester, Virginia. “This savestransportation costs, newaggregate costs, and dump-ing fees.”

Waste Not, Want NotIdeally, C&D materialsshould be reused if they canbe recovered in high-qualitycondition. A good example ofthis is the recovery and reuseof architectural pieces (suchas door moldings and fire-place mantels) for identicalpurposes in new or renovatedbuildings. If the materials arenot immediately reusable,they may be recyclable—usable as feedstock to manu-facture other products, suchas scrap metal that is melteddown and fabricated intoother metal products. If the

materials are not recyclable, their energy con-tent might be put to use, as in the burning ofwood chips for boiler fuel. The least desirablealternative is landfilling, as it takes up valu-able space and poses a potential threat to theenvironment through the leaching of toxi-cants into the air and water.

Asphalt from roadwork is being recycledby grinding it up and putting it back in thehot mix to be placed on roads again. As withconcrete recycling, this is a well-establishedindustry in North America, with approxi-mately 150 million tons recycled annually,according to the CMRA. Asphalt shinglescan be recycled, too. The largest market is foruse in hot mix asphalt for roadways.Recycled shingles can also be used as a “coldpatch” for filling potholes, or mixed in withgravel to spread on unpaved roads.

Wood can be reused in various ways,depending upon its condition. Framing,flooring, and siding can often be reused forits original purpose. However, wood pene-trated by numerous nails or covered withpaint (particularly lead-based paint), cre-osote, or caulking may be unusable. Newtools, such as pneumatic denailers andmachines to strip lead-based paint, are mak-ing it easier to recover usable wood products.

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Wood I recycle if I could? If scrap wood can’t beused architecturally, it can still be chipped formulch, boiler fuel, or wood composite fodder.

Heavy hitter. Scrap metal is one of themost commonly recycled constructionmaterials, with strong markets in theUnited States and abroad.

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Local codes determine whether wood can bereused for framing. Wood that is notreusable is often chipped for use as boiler fuelor mulch, or made into a building materialknown as medium-density fiberboard.

In certain parts of the country, marketsare being found for gypsum, the main com-ponent of wallboard. Wendy Worley, a mar-ket development specialist with the NorthCarolina Recycling Business AssistanceCenter, says ground-up gypsum from wall-board is being used as a litter bed for chick-en and turkey houses in that stateand as a soil amendment in areaswhere soil is low in alkalinity. In theNortheast, gypsum is being recycledback into wallboard by a few compa-nies. “There’s tremendous potentialfor recovered wallboard to be recy-cled into new product, but, unfortu-nately, the raw material is still dirtcheap,” Turley says. So there is littleincentive to recycle.

Metals including iron, steel, cop-per, and aluminum have long beenrecycled from both demolition anddeconstruction projects. Scrap metalis sold to mills where it is melteddown to serve as feedstock for newproduct. In 1999, more than 120million tons of scrap metal wererecycled in the United States, accord-ing to the Institute of ScrapRecycling Industries, a trade associa-tion, and the market is improving.“Right now, the market for scrapmetal is very good,” says BrianTaylor, editor of Recycling Today mag-azine. “Scrap iron, aluminum, andcopper are all at the high end of theirtrading ranges. This is being drivenby huge demand in China and a rel-atively weak supply here in theUnited States with the recession.”

Building fixtures such as win-dows, doors, and cabinets can beremoved and resold for use in newconstruction or renovation, providedthey meet local building codes. Such materi-als, even those that do not meet U.S. build-ing codes, are sought after by nonprofitgroups for use in building shelter for the poorin Mexico and Central America. ProjectMercy, a nonprofit agency based in SanDiego, purchases secondhand building mate-rials, including lumber, garage doors, win-dows, and plywood, to build solid shelters forsquatter families near Tijuana, Mexico.

Keeping Health and Safety Up toCodeDeconstruction does pose certain workerhazards, compared to demolition. “In mostdemolition projects, the worker is sitting in

an enclosed cab of a crane or excavatorknocking down the building from the out-side,” says Brian McVay, project manager forDeConstruction Services. “In deconstruc-tion, workers are inside the building, face toface with all sorts of potential health hazards.They’re breathing the dust, pulling materialsdown, carrying them out to the curb.”

Deconstruction typically involves alabor-intensive multistep process thatrequires the contractor to pay special atten-tion to occupational health and safety issues.

The first step involves a two-part site assess-ment to identify each type of material usedin the building, its condition, the way it issecured to the structure, and the ease ofremoval. This is first done through a thor-ough noninvasive visual inspection of thebuilding, followed by an invasive inspectionin which pieces of floors, ceilings, and wallsare removed to assess hidden layers.

If hazardous materials are identified,they must be removed before deconstructioncan proceed. The most commonly foundhazardous materials are asbestos and lead-based paint. “We come across asbestos allthe time,” says McVay. “You find it in pipeinsulation, duct insulation, ceiling tiles,

roofing, siding. . . . It’s in practically everystructure beyond a certain age.”

Asbestos is typically classified as friableor nonfriable. Friable asbestos is easilycrumbled or pulverized and, if disturbed,can remain suspended in the air, creating ahealth hazard. Nonfriable asbestos is noteasily reduced to dust and thus does notpresent a serious health hazard if leftundisturbed.

Chronic inhalational exposure toasbestos can lead to the lung disease asbesto-

sis, which is a diffuse fibrous scarringof the lungs. Symptoms of asbestosisinclude shortness of breath, difficultybreathing, and coughing. In severecases, this disease can lead to deathdue to impairment of respiratoryfunction. A large number of occupa-tional studies have reported that expo-sure to asbestos via inhalation can alsocause lung cancer and mesothelioma,a rare cancer of the membranes liningthe abdominal cavity and surroundingorgans.

When contractors come acrossasbestos, they invariably call in a spe-cialty contractor to remove it. Boththe Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration (OSHA) and the EPAhave rules pertaining to the protectionof workers and the removal ofasbestos. OSHA Construction Stand-ard 29 CFR 1926.1101 establishesprocedures for protecting workersinvolved in building demolition andrenovation where asbestos is removedor encapsulated. The standard dividesasbestos work into four types, eachwith its own set of requirements. ClassI covers removal of thermal insulationor surface material, such as sprayed-onfireproofing. Class II covers removal ofasbestos-containing wallboard, floortile and sheathing, and roofing andsiding shingles. Class III refers torepair and maintenance work whereasbestos-containing materials are like-

ly to be disturbed. Class IV covers mainte-nance and custodial activities during whichemployees come into contact with asbestos-containing materials.

For most of these types, asbestos workmust be conducted within regulated areas,which only trained and authorized person-nel wearing respirators and other protectivegear may enter. The EPA’s National Emis-sion Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants(40 CFR 61 Subpart M) establishes require-ments for removing asbestos, preventing therelease of fibers into the air, and disposing ofthe waste.

Lead-based paint is commonly found inbuildings constructed before 1978, when

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Best practices for asbestos. Different types of asbestos-contain-ing materials, which are found in nearly every structure past a cer-tain age, have special requirements for removal or encapsulation.

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the manufacture of such paint was banned.As with asbestos, lead-based paint that is ingood condition does not present an immi-nent hazard, but paint that is flaking off canbe dangerous. Lead dust can form whenlead-based paint is dry-scraped, dry-sanded,burned, or heated, or when lead pipes arecut or torched. Lead chips and dust can set-tle on surfaces and objects that workerstouch, then reenter the air when people vac-uum, sweep, or walk through the area. Leadcan affect adults in the form of high bloodpressure, digestive problems, nerve disor-ders, memory and concentration problems,and muscle and joint pain, and may con-tribute to low birthweight and prematuredelivery in children of exposed women.

With this in mind, OSHA Regulation29 CFR 1926.62 requires employers in con-struction, demolition, and deconstructionto implement specific procedures to protectworkers from exposure to potentially harm-ful quantities of airborne lead dust.Depending upon the level of exposure,workers may be required to wear respiratorsand even protective clothing.

The EPA has a separate set of standardsregulating the management and disposal oflead-based paint debris. These classify lead-based paint debris as a hazardous material tobe disposed of in a hazardous waste landfillpermitted under the Resource Conservationand Recovery Act. However, the EPA is cur-rently proposing to suspend this require-ment and allow lead-based paint debris tobe disposed of in traditional C&D landfills,based on an agency analysis published as afact sheet in 1998 that found disposal inC&D landfills to be safe and less costly thandisposal in other types of landfills.

Other than reports on the health effectsof removing asbestos, there are virtually nopublished studies reporting on the healtheffects of actual demolition or deconstruc-tion operations in the United States.eLCOSH, the Electronic Library ofConstruction Occupational Safety andHealth, posts one report published in 1994by the Center to Protect Workers’ Rights,the research arm of the Building andConstruction Trades Department of theAFL–CIO. Health Hazards to ConstructionWorkers During the Demolition of TwoTenement Buildings reports on health assess-ments—including blood lead screening andpersonal monitoring of airborne lead dustand asbestos—as well as an onsite assess-ment of work practices and hygiene.Unfortunately, low participation among theworkers (only two participated in the bloodscreening) rendered the personal monitor-ing results of questionable significance.Airborne monitoring revealed high leadexposures from certain activities (burning ofA

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Staying safe on the job. The potential for greater hazardous exposures is one drawback to decon-struction. Personal protective equipment, proper work procedures, and good physical condition areessential for coming face to face with building debris.

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materials coated in lead-based paint) andsignificant levels of respirable dust, thoughthe latter fell below OSHA standards for theeight-hour time-weighted average. Mosttroubling to investigators was that basic dustcontrol procedures (such as wetting of mate-rials) were not practiced, nor were workersprovided with respirators.

In February 2003, the CMRA and theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted ayet-unpublished joint study on the potentialfor recycling concrete covered with lead-based paint. Monitoring the crushing ofconcrete from demolished housing at FortOrd in Monterey, California,researchers determined thatthe concentration of lead inthe finished product wasbelow EPA toxicity limits,making it suitable for recy-cling as aggregate.

DeConstruction Serviceshas developed an extensivesafety program for all its work-ers to minimize the risk ofinjury or disease. Potentialhires are specially interviewedand given a health evaluationto determine if they are physi-cally capable of doing thework. “Every day, our workersmove at least twelve hundredpounds of material,” McVaysays. “We put a pedometer onone crew member and foundthat he walked six miles in oneday going back and forth to adrop-off container. We want tobe sure that anyone we hirewill not come back in threeweeks and say, ‘This job ishurting me.’”

DeConstruction Servicesrequires workers to wear half-mask high-efficiency particleair (HEPA) filters on the job. Ifthere is any indication that workers mighthave trouble doing their work wearing thesomewhat breathing-restrictive mask (forexample, if they smoke), the companyrequires them to have their breathing capac-ity evaluated at the time of hire. Workersalso have blood drawn to establish theirbaseline lead levels.

After three years of monitoring,DeConstruction Services has actually seenits workers’ blood lead levels drop. “Most ofour workers have been in the constructionindustry for years and never wore respira-tors,” McVay says. “Wearing them has actu-ally improved their health.”

McVay says he has sent out copies of thecompany’s safety procedures to manydeconstruction start-up companies at their

request, and he believes that quite a few ofthem are following these procedures.

Deconstructing for a BetterEnvironmentFrom an environmental perspective, decon-struction and the attendant reuse and recy-cling of materials offer certain advantagesover demolition. C&D wastes make up alarge percentage of the total waste headed tolandfills—approximately 33% of nonindus-trial wastes on a national average, accordingto the EPA. While there are no figures on theamount of C&D wastes being diverted by

deconstruction, any material that can berecycled or reused will help extend the life ofexisting landfills.

Deconstruction and subsequent reuse ofmaterials also benefits the environment byreducing the demand for raw materials suchas wood and iron ore. Savings include notjust virgin material itself, but also the energythat would have been consumed and the pol-lution created in extracting, transporting, andmanufacturing these materials into finishedproducts. Recyclers usually assert that reuseof building materials generally saves about95% of embodied energy that would other-wise be wasted.

The City of Philadelphia recently fundedthe ILSR to examine the benefits of decon-structing some 19,000 inner-city buildings.

The institute determined that a total of 17.5million board feet of wood could bereclaimed from the buildings over five years.The ILSR asserts that reuse of wood, com-bined with source reduction and use of alter-native fibers for paper, could dramaticallyreduce the need for harvesting of timber andits attendent environmental problems.

Because federal regulations require thathazardous wastes—including C&D wastesuch as asbestos and wood covered with lead-based paint—be disposed of in a carefullyprescribed manner, deconstruction providesno advantage over demolition with regard to

these materials. In some cases, deconstruc-tion firms are able to reuse items coated withlead paint if they are in good condition.However, the additional cost to remove thelead is high, and only worth doing for valu-able architectural pieces, according to BradGuy, associate director of the Powell Centerfor Construction and Environment at theRinker School of Building Construction.

Proponents of deconstruction uniformlyagree that the chief obstacle to the practice iseconomics. Deconstruction is labor-intensiveand time-consuming, whereas the cost oflandfilling is—for now—still relativelycheap. “Demolition contractors are in busi-ness to make a profit, and if it’s cheaper toknock stuff down and haul it to a landfillthan to recycle it in some fashion, that is

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Environmental Health Perspectives • VOLUME 111 | NUMBER 16 | December 2003 A 887

what they’ll do,” says Kurt Buss, executivedirector of the nonprofit Used BuildingMaterials Association.

Turley points out that demolition con-tractors have always done a certain amount ofrecycling of building materials and wouldgladly do more as markets dictate. “It’s not asif demolition contractors have anythingagainst recycling or reuse,” Turley says. “It’slargely a question of economics.”

Time and timing is another factor work-ing against deconstruction. Deconstructionis more time-consuming than demolition.According to McVay, demolition and

removal of a typical 1950s ranch homewould take two workers about 3–4 days,whereas deconstruction would require sixworkers taking up to 15 days. And if a newbuilding is slated to go up on a site, demoli-tion contractors may not have the liberty ofdeconstruction even if they can afford it. “IfThe Home Depot is putting up a new build-ing, they aren’t going to give you an extra twoweeks to take an old building down by hand,even if you can save them ten thousand dol-lars,” Griffin says. Such investors may be bor-rowing millions of dollars to put up one ofthese buildings, and the extra interest theyaccrue wouldn’t be worth the savings fromreuse of materials.

Local building codes and the prejudicesof local inspectors against reused materials

may also discourage the reuse of certainbuilding materials. Codes are based in partupon the judgment of building code officials,who may be concerned, fairly or not, aboutthe strength of used materials. “We some-times have problems getting permission toreuse structural steel,” Griffin says. “Somebuilding codes will not allow it to be used ina new building. Some engineers won’t puttheir stamp on used beams. The same is trueof wood.” Turley says the U.S. ForestProducts Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin,is currently developing a grading system forused wood.

At the same time, incentives to promotereuse of building materials are on the rise.Buss points to “green building” programssuch as those sponsored by the cities ofBoulder, Colorado, and Austin, Texas. TheBoulder program requires building contrac-tors to earn a certain number of points toobtain permits for new construction or reno-vation. Points may be awarded for materialsreuse and recycling. Austin’s program, whichstarted in 1991, awards residential and com-mercial buildings up to five stars, reflectingthe number of points earned for sustainableuse of energy, water, and materials, as well ashealth- and community-enhancing featuressuch as having a front porch. Builders canearn points for reusing materials includingconcrete, cabinets, doors, interior trim, and

flooring. The program is voluntary, and thestars are being used as a marketing tool.

In San Jose, California, the city requires adeposit from building contractors before theycan proceed with construction or renovationprojects. The deposit varies by the type andsize of the project; residential new construc-tion requires a deposit of 20¢ per square foot.To get a refund, builders must prove theyhave diverted at least half of their waste fromthe landfill, usually by hauling debris to cer-tified salvage yards and scrap metal recyclers.

Other cities are promoting recyclingand reuse by placing conditions on local

land use permits. In Los Angeles,approval of the Playa Vista develop-ment of 5.1 million square feet ofcommercial space and 13,000 resi-dential units included special condi-tions for recycling of C&D debris.According to the California Inte-grated Waste Management Board,more than 84,000 tons of C&Dmaterial was recycled in this project.

The U.S. Green Building Councilsponsors the LEED (Leadership inEnergy and Environmental Design)Green Building Rating System, a vol-untary national rating system fordeveloping high-performance sus-tainable buildings. Points are awardedfor practices such as using salvagedand refurbished building materials innew construction. Federal agenciesincluding the Department ofDefense, the Department of Energy,the EPA, and the National ParkService are participating in the LEEDprogram.

Despite these advances, decon-struction may never become com-mon practice unless buildings aredesigned from the start with materialsrecovery and reuse in mind. Modernconstruction methods, which arefocused on permanent fixing of build-

ing components, allow for little else butdestructive demolition. In May 2003, thePowell Center for Construction andEnvironment organized the 11th RinkerInternational Conference on Deconstructionand Materials Reuse, where numerous ideaswere presented on how to design for decon-struction. The challenge remains how toincorporate these ideas into the marketplace.

“Builders in the United States are notadopting these methods to any significantdegree,” Kibert says. “Our hope is that as dis-posal costs continue to rise and pressuremounts to adopt green building methods,industry will start building with deconstruc-tion in mind.”

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Everything old is new again. Fixtures, win-dows, and other materials in good condition canbe sold or donated to organizations that buildhomes for families in need.