While the United States still lags in this trend compared to Europe and other areas. The trend is salvaging materials from demolished buildings and reusing and repurposing is definitely growing, elsewhere. In general the term deconstructing refers to taking apart old blighted buildings and salvaging or recycling useable materials.
Near the city of Grenoble in the southeast of France an old former military hospital is being deconstructed. There are no bulldozers or wrecking balls. Instead workers are using hand tools. Admittedly these projects can take upwards of 8 months. The goal salvage as much material as possible from the site — including radiators, stones, bricks, tiles, door frames and handles — that would otherwise have been thrown away, The thinking in Europe comes out of the perspective that construction generates roughly 12% of European greenhouse gasses and 35% of total waste generated. With France at the lead the European Union is definitely pushing forward policies including requiring higher rates of waste separation from construction companies.
There are hopeful signs here in the U.S. The thinking is that since in the United States most home building is lumber based that deconstruction and salvaging, reuse and recycling might be easier to scale here. In 2022, San Antonio, Texas, the seventh-largest city in the U.S., introduced its own deconstruction ordinance, requiring certain projects to be “fully deconstructed” as opposed to mechanically demolished. And in 2023 the city of Boulder, Colorado, used the steel from a 250,000-square-foot hospital to build a new fire station.
According to the publication Green Builder deconstruction and salvaging began trending up in the United States in 2022. At the time the publication shared, “From coast to coast, interest in reusing materials in home and office decor is up. Reclaimed timber and lumber has become mainstream, with remodelers often trying to save beautiful (and now unattainable) wide plank flooring, or unique barn lumber.”
In 2023, when banking giant JPMorgan Chase announced details about its new headquarters building in New York City, it included a striking statement. Company leaders said that during the demolition of its previous headquarters on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, 97 percent of the materials were recycled, reused, or upcycled. And just this year the US. Environmental Protection Agency published sustainable management practices for “dismantling buildings and to salvage components.”