With old buildings being veritable goldmines of useful recyclable materials, finding a demolition company that understands and practices great recycling techniques is crucial. From helping to avoid materials needlessly ending up in landfill to producing valuable new building materials, demolition can be about much more than just getting rid of an old structure. Here are five ways demolition companies can utilize recycling techniques to avoid waste and landfill.
Always Aim for a High Recycling Rate
One of the key ways demolition companies can prioritize and utilize recycling is simply through putting recycling at the core of their approach. Although utilizing recycling techniques can be costly and slower at times, it also allows for less landfill waste, more reusing of materials and a more conscientious demolition service. With such a high percentage of buildings being reusable, it’s important to aim for a high recycling rate.
Concrete Can Be Turned into New Concrete Products
Concrete and old asphalt can be recycled through breaking them down and crushing to produce a product suitable for building new foundations and road bases. There are even techniques out there that allow crushed recycled concrete to be turned into new concrete paving bricks and blocks, as well as other new concrete building products. This process utilizes cleaning and filtering to purify the old concrete, which is then used as an aggregate for new concrete.
Glass Lasts in Landfill
Glass is made of silicon dioxide, calcium silicate and sodium silicate, and unfortunately, these components don’t decompose for a very long time. When glass is placed in landfill, it never decomposes. However, glass is very straightforward to recycle into new glass products and should never simply be dumped into landfill. As a material that can be recycled time and time again, it’s important to make sure glass is disposed of and recycled correctly.
Reusing Bricks and Blocks
Many different types of blocks and bricks have an extremely long lifespan, often over two hundred years. This longevity is both a negative and a positive, depending on what you do with them. If you stick them in landfill, they’re never going to degrade, just sit there forever. However, if you recycle them, they’re perfectly suitable for reusing in building projects, especially as a more budget-friendly building material.
Wood and Metals
You might think that as wood is much more prone to decomposition than the other materials mentioned, it’s not worth recycling, however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Old, recycled wood can be used to produce new furniture, mulch, and compost, presenting further useful purposes for materials that would otherwise find themselves in landfill. The same is true of metals like brass, copper, and steel, which can be crushed, compacted and recycled into useful new products.
Prioritizing recycling as a demolition company comes down to simply planning ahead and prioritizing the sorting of materials, as well as utilizing more environmentally friendly deconstruction techniques.