Waste

The amount of waste involved in building has been really bothering me. I think I will see if there are any charities in Adelaide that build houses for families who need homes. I seem to remember an organisation called houses for humanity or something like that. Found them! They are called Habitat for Humanity

The reason for this is that I have seen so much thrown away. I'm not talking about offcuts of wood i'm talking about perfectly good building materials that are going in the skip because they are surplus. I recycle as much as possible around here to reduce landfill so it's really annoying to see things get thrown out that could still do the job they were created for.

What really pushed my button was when the gutters went up and a box was thrown into the skip. It was cardboard so I decided to put it in my recycling bin. When I picked it up it had 5 gutter clips (thats what I call them anyway lol) I asked him if he was still using the box and he said "no just throw them in the skip they are just extras" There was nothing wrong with them so why didn't he take them for the next job or leave them for the builder to use on the next job?

I don't see why they can't put this stuff to use. Surely if they don't want to keep the money in their own pockets then they could have a left over pile that could go to someone like Habitat for Humanity to collect and use.

Well that whinge wasn't the ony thing that came out of the skip. So far we have recycled...

The quarry rubble ... to raise the level of our front yard so there is no more step up to the verandah

From the concreting we have saved orange plastic, bar chairs (the black tower things that hold rio up inside the slab), small cement blocks (that were also used inside the slab) a full pack of trench mesh stirrups, lots of tie wires and several huge pieces of rio mesh that will be used for foot paths and leftovers will be used in the vege garden. The the last of concrete went into the skip...so if you ever have concrete being poured at your place have a think about what else you want done. We could have had a path out of all the left overs if only we had thought of it before!

Metres and metres of string line that is cut off at the slightest hint of a tangle is now being used in the garden and on some creations i've made

The batton offcuts are hard wood so they are going into our neighbours fire to keep them warm.

Unfortunately the other offcuts are treated but if they weren't then they would have gone to our local kindy for construction play

The broken roof tiles and the offcuts of cfboard will soon be garden edges.

The steel is being taken to the metal merchant to be recycled and put some money back in our pocket.

I've also been having fun and creating while waiting for tradie's to turn up so i'll finish this off with a photo of my favourite creation out of 100% rubbish!