Going Green: The Benefits of Building Deconstruction

Building deconstruction is an eco-friendly alternative to demolishing a building. There are many benefits to disassembling a building, including benefits to both the environment and the economy. Here are some of the many benefits of building deconstruction.

Building Deconstruction: Reducing Waste in Landfills

By definition, building deconstruction is the process in which the various parts of the building are dismantled piece by piece in an attempt to save and reuse as many of the building's components as possible. This process helps reduce waste in landfills, as much of the deconstructed building can be used elsewhere. Meanwhile, in traditional demolition, the building components would be thrown into a landfill or disposed of elsewhere.

This is significant because each year, approximately 33 million tons of wood and demolition-related debris ends up in landfills across the United States. This amount could be significantly reduced if more companies would participate in building deconstruction rather than demolition.

Building Deconstruction: Using Less Energy

When you reuse building components from a deconstructed building, you are using less energy in the world. Here's how: traditionally, constructing a new building requires the use of new materials. These new materials need to be manufactured and shipped to your location. By reusing existing materials, new materials do not need to be manufactured or shipped; thus reducing the amount of energy expelled in the creation of the new building. In short, that means fewer fossil fuels are used.

Economical Benefits of Building Deconstruction

Of course, the environment isn't the only area that benefits from building deconstruction. There are actually a plethora of economical benefits of building deconstruction.

For example, building deconstruction takes more manpower and labor in comparison to traditional demolition. More people are needed to disassemble the building, as well as people are needed to resell (or donate) the materials to others who will use them. In short, building deconstruction creates additional jobs that didn't exist before and of course, cannot be outsourced.

By creating more jobs, building deconstruction also stimulates the overall economy. More people with jobs (especially in today's economy,) means more money being spent on products ranging from food items to entertainment items and even housing. Of course, this is all in theory since currently, there are very few companies that participate or offer building deconstruction.

Aside from this, many argue that building deconstruction is more expensive due to the increased labor needs. However, it should be noted that even though the cost of deconstructing the building has increased, the cost of creating a new building using the reclaimed materials decreases; thus evening out the differences between the two.

Building deconstruction could be an important part in green living. It reduces waste, reuses products, cuts down on the use of fossil fuels and of course, has economical benefits as well. Unfortunately, the true potential of building deconstruction may never come full circle.