Recycled Materials & Waste

We live in an age of rapid urbanization that brings with it an endlessly growing demand for new homes, which has impacted the quality and lifespan of the homes we build. The current fate of older homes is typically one of demolition, sadly, rather than deconstruction. The relatively low-cost of the industrial waste…

Everywhere we look online we see cool & beautiful furniture like beds & headboards made from recycled wood from shipping pallets - but could they be slowly poisoning us? Here's how to keep pallet furniture safe. Pallet Beds - cool but potentially dangerous! We've all seen these rustic shabby-chic pallet wood beds &…

Sensible design, material re-use and using recycling centers can reduce what you send to a landfill. The best way to reduce waste is to plan ahead to keep it at a minimum; here are some suggestions on how you can do that: Design your house with reduced waste in mind by keeping the plans at sensible dimensions. If…

Get money for your old building material and Find used building materials on classified lists and through online brokers. When buildings are decommissioned there can be a lot of valuable materials that could be used again, but when buyers can’t find sellers, otherwise usable materials are being sent to a land fill…

Recycled building materials can add character to a home while you save money and reduce building waste in landfills. The cost of every item we purchase is determined in part by the price of oil. This includes products that are in no way petroleum based, since material extraction, manufacturing and transportation…

Salvage companies are pulling up logs from the bottoms of rivers, where a century and a half of log drives has left behind a lot of great wood. As a kid growing up along the Gatineau River in Quebec, watching tugboats pulling log booms down the river was commonplace, and logs that got loose were a great source of…

Felled trees in residential areas have most often been either burned as waste, or taken to landfills. With the help of portable mills and tree salvage companies, better use is being made of this valuable resource. It's always a bit sad to watch an old and seemingly healthy tree come down. But if it must, it's great…

Decommissioned aircraft getting second life as recycled metal is used as exterior cladding. They might be parked a little more precisely than an auto wrecking yard, but that doesn’t mean they will ever fly again. Decommissioned aircraft have been declared so, because they have reached the end of their safe flying…

built with 105 recycled shipping pallets, this innovative structure by b sq. Design Studio Inc. included walkways, a playhouse, a water feature, and vertical herb gardens that delighted visitors at the flower and garden festival. b sq. Design Studio Inc. is a Toronto based landscape design and build firm that…

An emerging technology that can make use of waste plastic. Though we all diligently cart our plastic to the curb for recycling, the sad reality is that only about 7% of it is commercially viable for recycling, the rest ends up as landfill. Plastic is a petroleum product that until now has been very inconsistent and…

The Nail Kicker quickly and easily removes nails from old lumber, saving costs on material purchase as well as waste disposal. Most people, certainly those reading here on our site, would no doubt prefer to see old lumber re-employed than sent to a landfill, but staying on a construction budget can on occasion trump…