Recycling Articles : Recycling Building Materials

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As you probably know by now, Abacus Home Clearance will remove and recycle just about anything with the only exception being building materials. However, these are actually relatively easy to recycle yourself and this guide will aim to teach you how.

Discarded wood of all sizes, doors, window frames, bricks and other building scrap would damage our vans if we removed it but perhaps it is good that this encourages us to think twice about what to do with it. Perhaps the first thought should be whether or not the materials are reusable. Doors and windows have obvious uses although decent quality builder’s timber contains a whole realm of possibilities. Any avid recycler would be amiss not to have a compost heap, easily constructed from reused wood.

Bricks also have many possible uses from building walls to general garden features or repairs to them including brick barbecues. Sand bags are extremely reusable in order to create cement to help build with bricks.

However, reusing is usually only effective on a small scale and with small amounts of building material. Yet those who are involved with the trade or who uncover large amounts of spare building materials anywhere will need to do other things to avoid sending these products to clog up a landfill.

A simple, although perhaps a little obvious, step is to plan your building jobs more carefully so as to avoid wastage. Some professionals in the building trade have estimated that on most projects at least 20% of the materials ordered are wasted. If everyone involved in the project were more organised and checked and double checked the requirements then this could alleviate a serious burden on our landfill sites.

Yet, none of this helps very much if right now you are already looking at a tonne of bricks that you don’t know how to recycle. The simplest answer is: reclamation centres. These centres take all kinds of stuff that can’t be found cheaply, easily elsewhere by members of the general public. The types of products received by reclamation centres include bricks, wood, fireplaces, stone and other building materials and outdoor fixtures as well as porcelain and plumbing.

This means that if you are a builder you could often save large amounts of money by ordering your materials through a reclamation yard; as well as dumping excess materials there. Even if you’re not a builder, you could be charged fees for dumping large amounts of material into a landfill. using a reclamation yard saves this charge as well as encouraging reuse and benefitting the environment.

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