Recently, I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she mentioned that my\u00a0family was considering\u00a0selling our suburban house and moving closer to the city. She then added\u00a0that they weren’t completely\u00a0sure if she was going to do it because if they\u00a0did, our house\u00a0would almost certainly\u00a0get torn down. Our house would be\u00a0nothing special to the housing market, but nevertheless,\u00a0every part\u00a0of my house has an\u00a0intrinsic value that can\u2019t be measured based on merely\u00a0market values. So many aspects\u00a0of my childhood would end up as waste:\u00a0the walls of my room that were painted over countless times in order to find the perfect color, or the hardwood floors that got scratched when my little brother decided it would be a good idea to skateboard around the house, and much more. Then I realized that this happens daily: household items that acquire years of meaning are\u00a0destined to lose all life in a landfill.<\/p>\n
I never really thought of the amount of waste that comes from building and demolishing houses until after that\u00a0phone conversation with my mom. I was surprised to find out that around 200-300 thousand houses<\/a> are demolished each year in the United States, and they\u2019re being replaced at an even faster rate in most areas. Up until somewhat\u00a0recently, nearly all of the materials from a\u00a0demolished house, such as wood, window glass, and household items are simply thrown away primarily because the costs of finding ways to refurbish the materials are substantially higher than simply throwing them away. In Seattle, about 25% of the waste shipped from trains to be brought to landfills come from the demolition of houses. In fact, there are many\u00a0landfills across the United States exclusively dedicated to construction and demolition waste. At the same time that\u00a0old house materials are being brought to landfills, new housing materials with generally unsustainable supply chains are being created for the construction of a new housing project. This linear system of production, consumption, and waste simply can’t work forever. Fortunately, over the past two decades, hundreds of companies have appeared that mediate the reuse of items that come from the demolition of houses.<\/p>\n When thinking about reusing items in an economic sense, it gets interesting because the consumers in the original supply chain of the good become the producers in an entirely new supply chain. Of course, the \u201cproducer\u201d doesn\u2019t actually produce the item, but rather just brings the item back into either an identical or similar market at a lower value. Reusing is a type of open loop system that usually requires the assistance of a third-party company that facilitates the collection of the items from the suppliers and the selling and distribution of the items from the demanders. This tends to be the primary issue when thinking about reusing because it can sometimes be hard to bring an equal ratio of producers and consumers together. Theoretically, the quantity supplied of the good is as many of the materials that can be salvaged for reuse, but the actual supply potential tends to be suppressed because there isn’t a perceived demand for the materials.<\/p>\n One company that successfully brings producers and consumers into a reusable item market together that stands\u00a0out to me because it was one of the first of its kind is called Second Use<\/a>. Located in Seattle, Washington and established in 1994, it salvages materials from demolished houses to be sold and reused for new construction projects. They solve the problem of bringing consumers and producers together through an effective amount\u00a0of incentives. Obviously, the consumers of the reused materials benefit because they\u2019re getting items at a lower price. According to the website, the materials are usually 40-60% of the price of the equivalent new items. In addition, using the materials bought from Second Use can help the project get credits for becoming LEED certified. Suppliers\u00a0benefit from the reuse because instead of making no money disposing of the old materials, they are paid to give their items to Second Use. It is easy to qualitatively say that reusing is good for the environment, but it is much more effective to be able to see a quantitative effect. The Second Use website gives people the opportunity to see exactly how much they are benefitting the environment to see how many pounds of CO2 is averted from re-using common house materials with an Environmental Impact Calculator<\/a>. For example, reusing a kitchen sink averts 216 lbs. of CO2, which is about as much CO2 emitted as driving an SUV for 150 miles.<\/p>\n Materials from house demolition and construction obviously aren’t the\u00a0only opportunity to reuse. This waste\u00a0usually doesn’t affect the average person’s life, but nevertheless, it is a huge contributor of waste.\u00a0Fortunately, my family has yet to move, but if or when they do, I hope that the materials of my house find a second life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she mentioned that my\u00a0family was considering\u00a0selling our suburban house and moving closer to the city. She then added\u00a0that they weren’t completely\u00a0sure if she was going to do it because if they\u00a0did, our house\u00a0would almost certainly\u00a0get torn down. Our house would be\u00a0nothing special to the housing market, but nevertheless,\u00a0every part\u00a0of my house has an\u00a0intrinsic value that can\u2019t be measured based on merely\u00a0market values. So many aspects\u00a0of my childhood would end up as waste:\u00a0the walls of my room that were painted over countless times in order to find the perfect color, Continue reading The Market of Reusing<\/span>