What You Should Know About Commercial Deconstruction
Track
C&D
Speakers
Michael Chambers, The ReUse People
Title
Executive Director
Speaker Biography
Formerly the organizations accountant, Michael came to TRP with a diverse background in growth and process consulting with the “Big Four” accounting firms and also with companies such as Apple and Cisco Systems. He also operates as a real estate broker, property manager, and frequently engages in construction and deconstruction as a personal hobby.
Abstract Title
What You Should Know About Commercial Deconstruction
Speaker Abstract
The U.S. EPA estimates that 250,000 single family houses and over 60,000 commercial buildings are removed every year. We also know from the EPA and the thousands of houses TRP has deconstructed over the past 30 years that approximately 100 tons of residential materials are landfilled, per house, totaling approximately 25 million tons annually.
For all buildings, approximately 600 million tons of total C&D tonnage is going to waste. Assuming 10% of that is new material that has been damaged or wrongly ordered, then 540 million tons represents that which is being demolished.
Applying rudimentary math shows the residential portion represents 2.2% of all C&D (25/540 = 4.6 %); consequently, commercial demolition represents 95.4%.
Simply put, one average commercial demolition project equals 85.6 single residential houses.
The presentation will discuss various types of deconstruction projects (complete, partial, adaptive reuse and historic preservation). Each category will also include a brief description of the salvageable materials, identifying which of these:
- Are the easiest and hardest to salvage
- Have the best and worst economic return
- Are environmentally the best and the worst
The presentation will demonstrate that, in the short-term, private-public relationships are necessary to optimize the salvaging of commercial materials and increases in landfill diversion.
The benefits and pitfalls of deconstruction ordinances will be addressed with real-life examples.
Learning Objectives
Understand the types of projects and the prevalence of each.
What materials are in demand and why.
How private-public partnerships are necessary for the successful diversion
Understand how building codes might affect deconstruction.