Sustainability Through Sorting

There are a number of businesses developing to take discarded materials, particularly building materials, out of the waste stream, and to lessen the need for new materials.

I wish there were more consciousness about the quality of the material, the understanding that this material, although once garbage, is truly and actually a resource. In my view, such material would be segregated in the following way:

• Some material is ordinary, plentiful and useful, and should be encouraged to be used in ordinary ways.
• Some material is special in some way, and its use should be encouraged to honor it.
• Some material is rare, and this material should be saved to be available to maintain existing conditions.

An example of ordinary material is framing lumber, and extremely plentiful, ordinary hardware. This material can take the place of new material in new projects, and should be offered at a considerable cost savings to new material in order to make it compete with the new material.

Special materials could be wood of uncommon species, dimension or profile, hardware items which are reasonably plentiful but which are recognized as special. This material would be given a cost which as high or higher than new material, but not so high as to make it unaffordable to be incorporated respectfully into new construction. This material should be catalogued to permit its availability to be known.

Rare items, special, obsolete hardware or fixtures, as well as specialized parts which often are lost through demolition, would be best used as replacement parts for maintaining the existing built environment. As such, those buildings which still serve a useful purpose in their original configuration and finishes, can be preserved to give us a real connection with our past. These items should be stored and catalogued to be made available to restore original conditions.

This would be preservation at its highest form.