Construction Waste Recycling Basics

Whether you're building a new home from scratch or just remodeling a room in your home, there's bound to be some sort of waste leftover from the process. Instead of tossing it into the landfill, go green and recycle it using these unique and clever methods for recycling construction waste.

Wood

Probably the easiest and most obvious construction waste recycling product is wood. It can be tossed into the compost pile, it can be shredded for mulch and it can be burnt in a fire. That is if it's the right kind of wood.

Pressure treated materials made prior to 2003 cannot be recycled using these methods. These materials contain copper chromium arsenic (CCA), a seriously toxic substance. Pressure treated materials should never be burned or used in compost as the CCA will leach out into the ground or atmosphere. Take these products to your local landfill for treatment.

Plastic

Plastics are everywhere in the building industry. Used primarily for packaging other building materials, plastic can easily overwhelm a jobsite. The bad news: many plastics that are used in packaging are non-recyclable by local landfills

The good news: shrink wrap is recyclable at landfills that accept number four plastics (that's the little number in a triangle on most manufactured plastic goods). Most shrink wrap falls into the low-density polyethylene LDPE number four category and can be recycled.

Metal

There are lots of construction metals are easily recycled. Aluminum window frames, copper wiring and plumbing pipes are just to name a few of the many metals easily recycled.

The problem is many metal construction products are a mix of these metals and can be difficult to recycle. Sheet metal is tough to recycle and many metal exterior doors are made from this product. So how do you know if your door is sheet metal? If a magnet sticks to it, it's recyclable.

If your door is still in good shape, but it's not going to be recycled, try taking it to your local used construction materials store. Check out Habitat for Humanities Restores for the perfect place to find use for your unwanted metal building materials.

Concrete

It seems as though, as soon as you pour concrete, it's everywhere. Even when already been poured and is hard, breaking it up always amounts to tons of little pieces everywhere. But when you are able to contain your concrete mess, there's nowhere to recycle it.

If you're busting up an old slab, only to pour a new one, reusing the old concrete as an aggregate is the perfect recycling solution for old concrete. Crush old concrete into pieces about the size of a quarter and add into Portland cement. Finish the concrete like normal and your old concrete gains a new life. Learn more about concrete recycling and finishing at Construct101.com