Sustainability and Waste in the Construction Industry
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Wellness, sustainability, and waste mitigation are becoming increasingly urgent, but there’s a lot of confusion about them. Today, we try to clear up a few things and look towards the future.
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk about sustainability and waste in the building industry.
Sustainability & Waste
Sustainability is a topic that’s being discussed more and more. However, it’s a multilayered topic and encompasses a lot of different areas of life and of environmental safekeeping, so it can become confusing.
(We’ve talked about sustainability on a few episodes, such as the one about B Corps and one about adaptive reuse, so be sure to check those out if this is a topic you are interested in.)
Waste is also a long talked about topic in the industry. Today, more and more cities are getting involved with developers to save buildings from being torn down, and instead, repurposing them or reconfiguring the space.
The EPA did a study that estimates that 500 million tons of construction and demo debris is generated in just the United States every year. What’s less clear is if this waste is coming from new builds or remodels, and what makes up the waste: Is it ends of boards, ends of pipes, etc.?
However, we can see the world turning more to adaptive reuse, rather than tear-downs.
Innovating
We are also seeing companies innovate to produce less waste on job sites. For instance, we used to use lath and plaster for walls and ceilings, which was low on waste but had a lot of inefficiencies in the process. So drywall board was created, which improved install time and finish, but produced a lot of waste. To help curb the amount of waste, about 20 years ago the size of drywall board was changed to meet the new demands of taller walls, so the amount of waste was drastically reduced.
Another benefit of gypsum board is that it breaks down easily, unlike screws and fasteners. So it’s important to remember that the materials you spec in a project matter, as some things decompose and some do not, contributing to the 500 million tons of waste a year, something that is not sustainable.
Companies can also help with sustainability at the factory level. For instance, Nichiha’s factories in Japan have collection bins for fiber cement composite cut-offs, which they haul away in electric trucks then regrind and reuse in their panels.
Tim mentions another company that used to sell the fall down from their factory to farmers who would use it as a base for their roads instead of gravel. It became known as hog fuel.
Between concrete wood products, wallboard, steel, asphalt, shingles, and breaking clay products, which one do you think is the highest percentage discarded? While most people would think it’s wood, wood actually is only 5%, while wallboard makes up 10%. Asphalt shingles make up 10%, 4% brick, and clay products and 3% concrete. Because steel is recyclable, it’s at 0%.
You also have to think about transportation. While brick manufacturers and concrete and asphalt paving companies, they can all use concrete from the job site or tear downs as a grog for their mix, the problem they run into is the transportation costs and the loading costs of getting it back. The carbon footprint of that transportation is arguably more challenging to justify.
The challenge with that is whenever you have waste of a high embodied energy product, then have to tear down the building and use new product, it’s compounded threefold the impact on the environment. And the question is what can we do with these sorts of heavy bulky products on the job site. If someone can figure out how to reuse waste in manufacturing at scale, that would be pretty interesting.
Fire Clay has started an organization in the Bay area called recology.com where they promote awareness of waste in the construction industry. Their members are architects, community builders, contractors installers, and makers, and they talk about the materials they are using, whether facade materials, flooring, even the colors being selected. Because if the colors and products go out of style, they have to be replaced and you’re stuck remodeling your showroom or lobby, etc.
There’s a culture in a lot of Asia where cabinet and flooring are either leased or people own them and take them with them when they move. So they reuse these floors and cabinets and partition walls, which end up becoming legacy or heritage items. And help reduce waste in the meantime.
Another issue with sustainability is the branding of green and greenwashing. There was never a specific branding period, so there’s confusion about what is really green or sustainable.
Just like there are many people, they have different ways they explain sustainability in their company or their construction site or their design.
Sustainability, in broad terms, means being able to coexist with your environment with one not damaging the other. So that can take on so many different topics. And every single player in the AAC world and the building community needs to be talking about it because there are things that we just don’t think about.
Today, more and more architects and designers with engineering backgrounds are starting to specify sustainable materials. But that’s only part of the solution. The other part needed is getting the developer involved. We’re slowly seeing this happen more and more.
The AIA now has a directory for zero net waste, and a bunch of firms and AIA members signed on to be zero net waste by 2030. The AIA and architects and designers are leading the charge, but it’s up to the makers and developers and installers to get on board before we can really start making a difference.
The challenge also has to go out to all building product manufacturers and tradespeople: How can we make this less expensive? There’s always an early adoption curve where people will accept something more expensive, but most real estate developers are conservative. They have investors to answer to and they are going to be skeptical. So we need to come up with ways which will benefit them, their investors, their end-users, and the occupants.
It may take time to change some minds, but the planet is worth it.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.