Waste Management Plan

A couple years ago, while we were in the very early stages of planning, I ran across a great, easy read called Your Green Home, A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home. The author is Alex Wilson, a pioneer and leader in the green building movement. It has influenced many aspects of our plan, probably more than any other resource. Chapter 11, Dealing With Construction Waste presents several opportunities for our builder to learn new tricks.

Typical practice in East Tennessee involves growing a huge pile of all manner of construction site waste which is then burned on site. Too often, construction rubble is just pushed into a big hole on site, covered with soil and left to rot and/or poison groundwater. We had such a bury hole in the back yard of our last house; a Shore built house on Southcliff Drive. I worked for years to remove junk and fill the hole as it rotted and sunk into the yard. It really pissed me off and I vowed to never have another house that that builder or his sub's were involved in.

Among the new tricks we are executing on this build: A Waste Management Plan is required by the contract. The point of it is to be sure the builder looks for every opportunity to REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. Our plan includes things like; On site segregation and use of recycle bins for plastics, metal wastes and paper/cardboard. Removal of nails and stacking of lumber scrap. We'll encourage reuse of usable timbers that way. Untreated scrap that's too short, split or odd shaped to reuse will be stacked for our use as kindling. (We also plan a few bonfires as cool weather rolls in. I understand Krispy Kims are yummy off the camp fire). Scrap wallboard is usually a landfill filler around here. Not on our job! We'll collect it, pulverize it with a brush chipper and use it as a soil amendment in the garden. After all, it's just gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) pressed between two layers of biodegradable paper. Gypsum is a prised soil amendment in Tennessee Red Clay soil. I think we'll even want more than we can make from the waste drywall.

I've already taken one load of recyclables the the recycling center. BR2 now has built these nice big bins and begun to use them. It's clear we've still got some educating to do, but its a good start. This treehugger is happy!