Milwaukee Journal has an article about Milwaukee’s new ordinance that requires deconstruction, as opposed to bulldozing, pre 1929 single families and duplexes.
A Milwaukee ordinance went into effect in January requiring single-family homes and duplexes built in 1929 or before to be deconstructed.
…
The extended timeline and need for more workers causes deconstruction to often cost nearly twice as much as demolition.
Bloomberg just had a piece on how recycling in general is failing.
Similarly a decade ago or so one of the Milwaukee TV stations followed a couple of DPW trucks full of recycling bin plastics to a landfill. The response was they were ‘just storing them underground’ until they could reuse the plastic.
None of these well-meaning things work as government mandates, but often take off when they are profit motivated.
Look at the electric car. Great for the environment but little interest among the general population. Then along came Musk with his Tesla Roadster. Not a utilitarian, save the planet vehicle, but a quick, sharp looking sports car that enthusiast liked, oh and it also happened to be electric. That changed the topic. His later vehicles are like little high tech spaceships from the Jetsons. Today, there is even Formula E racing, similar to F-1. The buying public, including gearheads, is now getting excited about electric cars and all the major manufactures are racing to beat Tesla. Soon gas may be a thing of the past.
Deconstruction will only work well when there is similar economic motivation to do so, such as a marketplace for used lumber and consumer desire for the materials.
But deconstruction of older properties has the additional problem that many of the materials cannot be reused due to containing lead, asbestos and who knows what other chemicals that will prevent its direct reuse.
