Building with Recycled Materials: Taking “Repurposing” to a New Level

Slowly, slowly, “old” is losing its stigma. It is more common that we buy used clothes for our family (it’s not only practical if you have children!), and the term “repurposing” has made it ok to shop flea markets, yard sales, or even our own garages or attics to find old treasures.  New has always equated with better in our society, but in recent years, a shift has begun towards a more pragmatic view.  Not only is buying used or pre-owned (if you prefer) products better for our budgets, it is better for the environment.  Valuable, and nonrenewable, resources are saved, and the footprint we leave behind is just the tiniest bit smaller.  Building with recycled materials is a new frontier in construction.  Are you one of the intrepid pioneers that will venture into this territory?

There are different ways to build with recycled materials, and homes are as diverse as the people creating them.  But these builders and homeowners tend to have one thing in common: creativity.  There is a world of building materials out there for the taking.  GreenHomeBuilding mentions an attractive 1,200 square foot home that was built for only $20,000.  Three-quarters of the building materials were recycled; about half were pulled from construction site dumpsters.  Using these dumpsters and landfills, the owner found free framing and sheathing materials, doors, windows, sinks, plumbing parts, and appliances.

A family in Wilmington, Ohio is building an “Earthship.” This is a recycled-material home that is actually becoming fairly common.  The Ohio family uses car tires, wine bottles, and aluminum cans in their construction.  Tires and 375 pounds of soil created the foundation and walls.  Donated aluminum cans cobble the spaces between the tires, and the whole is cemented by a mixture of straw and water.  The careful siting of the home into the side of a hill provides natural, year-round insulation.

In many cases, you’d be hard-pressed to pick a recycled home out of a lineup.  These homes do tend to be nontraditional but they certainly do not look like they were cobbled together using random bits and pieces from the landfill.  Careful planning is executed, and the end result is sometimes elegant, sometimes edgy, and always innovative.

The home builder who wants to go with recycled materials has, very fortunately, a great many resources from which to learn, extract ideas, and get useful tips and suggestions.  One of the most important questions is where are you going to get your building materials.  If you can haul away framing materials from a construction site, you’re in luck.  If you don’t have access to a few hundred car tires and several thousand aluminum cans, not to worry.

There are more and more commercial sites offering recycled materials.  Formerly, these were for accents; like having rustic beams or cabinets from old New England farmhouses.  Today, you can find these accessories, as well as the supplies you’ll need for the structure.  Habitat for Humanity, for instance, has ReStores, in which they sell recycled building materials.  This is just one resource: you can find sites that feature all different types of materials, from RetreadProducts.com, which sells “tire” logs to SGBlocks, which discusses using steel shipping containers in building, to All-Scrap, which features the exchange of all types of building materials.

There is help out there in the form of green contractors, recycled materials vendors and traders, and most helpful, homeowners who have crafted homes with innovative designs and even more inventive uses for common “trash” or “old” materials.