Recycling everything but the kitchen sink...and probably that too!

Let's talk about all the ways to used recycled material in a new home....
Ok that topic is way too broad for my little blog, so I'll just share the materials that we are using.

Driveway
Typically driveways use rock often called #57 stone as the supporting base material. Believe it or not, it's just not as easy and cheap to get good stone these days. In fact, we are importing alot of the stuff all the way from Nova Scotia. Yeah, Canadian Rock. I'm sure there is a joke here, but I can't come up with one.
So I've decided to use a recycled base for our driveway. We'll either be using crushed concrete, which is just concrete that's been run through a crusher (as the name implies). Or we may use roadway millings. You may not know it, but a lot of times when Interstates and other roads are resurfaced, they actually take off a couple of inches of asphalt before they put on the new pavement. Well, those millings have to go somewhere.

Concrete
While we will be having an asphalt driveway, we will still need concrete for our foundation. I estimate around 60 cubic yards of concrete for our footers and slab floor. That's at least 5 regular concrete trucks.
Here's another quick tidbit. Concrete uses a substantial amount of cement. Cement is a hot commodity and it takes a lot of energy to produce. So I'll be requesting that the concrete plant supply me a mix that includes fly ash to take the place of about 25% of the cement. What is fly ash you ask?

Fly ash is one of the residues generated in the combustion of coal. Fly ash is generally captured from the chimneys of coal-fired power plants, whereas bottom ash is removed from the bottom of the furnace. In the past, fly ash was generally released into the atmosphere, but pollution control equipment mandated in recent decades now require that it be captured prior to release.
Thank you Wikipedia, knower of all thing.

Water
Yes, we will be recycling water. Although it probably won't be toilet water. We will be doing some sort of rainwater harvesting. I'll save this topic for another posting, but basically we will be capturing all the rain that collects on the roof for irrigation use.

Wood
I'll be using wooden I-joists for my main roof rafters. How is this recycled? Well technically it isn't but it does make better use of resources than conventional solid lumber. These I-joists are made up of small wood chips, often reclaimed from another manufacturing process. They are straighter stronger and can span greater distances with less sagging.

No idea who this person is but I like the pic.

Air conditioner Pad
From the "little things add up" department, I'll be using an air condenser pad made up of recycled PET plastic, instead of concrete.

Composting
We picked up a "Yard Machine" at the last Earth Day event sponsored by the City of Tallahassee. They say that a typical household generates 2000 lbs. of waste each year and nearly half of that could be composted. So instead of throwing it away, why not compost and get some super rich soil for your garden and house plants?! It's super easy to do and, despite what you may think, it doesn't smell bad. (Just don't add meat to the pile)


You're probably bored by now, so I'll end with one more bonus when building in Tallahassee.
Marpan Recycling http://marpanrecycling.com/ just opened up a new facility in town this year. Basically it's cheaper than the landfill and they sort all of your construction debris. This means you can take a single load of debris from your home construction and they will sort the wood, siding, roofing materials, nails, concrete or just about anything that comes off of a construction site. Pretty cool!