A few months back re-rest (one of the Apartment Therapy family of sites) posted an article about reusing material from old buildings, rather than just tearing buildings down and throwing everything in to the landfill:
Now here’s a green idea: rather than demolishing buildings with a wrecking ball or by implosion (though that is more fun to watch) take them apart piece by piece… and then reuse the parts.
Granted, it takes a lot longer to dismantle a building than to just tear it down, but you get lots of material and you create jobs. Plus many of the old pieces are going to be of a higher quality level than may be available today:
This makes sense not only from an environmental viewpoint, but also because so many of the materials in old buildings are much better quality than new materials. Old 2 x 4’s, for example, are not only thicker than new ones from Home Depot, they’re usually sawn from old growth timber that has a much tighter grain and is therefore stronger than newer wood.
Here’s the video they posted, as well:
