So it looks like we won’t find out whether our grand plans [0] for the new studio [0]will be approved and permitted by the city [1] until at least July 20, which is still a couple of weeks away. And until I get a permit, I don’t want to tear anything down, just in case. But fear not, loyal Reduce Reuse [1] readers. Even though there’s nothing to do, I’m still hard at work…


No, really. One major aspect of this whole studio project is Reuse [1]. Right now I’m trying to take inventory of everything that’s gone into the studio as it is now: insulation, framing, finishes, the whole burrito [2]. When we get to tearing the place down, each of those elements will go into one of four piles:

• Things that can be reused in the new building: my half-assed way of going cradle-to-cradle [3]. I’ll get more into this on Thursday.

• Things that can be reused by other people, in other buildings. Stuff that, for whatever reason, I can’t incorporate into the new place will either go to Craigslist [4] or the Resource Yard [5].

• Things that can be recycled – all those nails and screws we’ll be pulling out during deconstruction can go to Ecocycle [6]’s scrap metal pile, as can all the copper wire from the old electrics. (Anyone else see Jesus’ Son [7]? Not my favorite movie, but there’s a koo-koo scene where Billy Crudup [8] and Denis Leary [9], smacked out to the gills, pull all the copper wiring out of an abandoned house, planning to sell it to a scrap metal dealer for drug money. Then Denis Leary dies. Promise: I will not take heroin while deconstructing my studio.)

• And lastly, things that have no future except in a landfill [10]. I imagine this pile will be larger than I’d like. At the moment, I can foresee a couple of big items headed here: The particleboard [11] that sheathes the framing is definitely a goner. Much of it is water damaged and swollen; being held together by glue, it’s not compostable; not even Ecocycle will take it. There’s also a bunch of fiberglass insulation stuffed into the eaves; that’s water damaged and useless as well. I don’t yet know if it can be recycled; I’ll keep y’all posted.

Even in a place like Boulder that likes to bleat out its greenness [12] at every turn, new construction is a huge source of waste. A house up the street from us was on the market for years; when I rode by the other day I saw that they had bulldozed the entire thing and were starting all over again. And by bulldozed, I mean they rammed giant machines into this 2000-odd square foot house until it fell over, then they piled the remains into dumpsters and sent it to the landfill. Disgusting.

And that’s not counting whatever waste is generated by whatever ginormous “dream home” goes up next. According to Dan Chiras [13], construction of a new 2000 sq. ft. home produces 8000 pounds of waste – 50 cubic yards of landfill space – including 1500 pounds of framing cutoffs, 2000 pounds of drywall, and 600 pounds of cardboard.

This is what that looks like:


When I went to the Greenbuild Expo [14] in Denver last year, there was a great panel about practical ways of greening up home construction. One of the panelists – the best one, so it really pains me to not remember his name; I think he was from Northeast Natural Homes, in Syracuse, New York – he allows no dumpsters on his construction sites. “They’re too tempting!” he said. Instead the emphasis is on ordering precise amounts of framing timber, drywall, shingling, whatever, and recycling whatever goes unused. That’s the approach I’m going for here.