Deconstruction approach saves emobodied energy

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Every product made by humans requires resources and energy to make. We use these products and discard them after their useful life . With the product disposal the embodies energy is lost and it consumes energy to transport to the disposal site.

Sustainable green thinking makes us to recognize this hidden energy and try to design products with cradle to cradle thinking. Once the useful life is reached the parts of the products are reused for making new products.

Smart companies have started looking at sustainable designs and now designing reuse in mind. Today I noted an advertisement in Wall street for Executive CEO chairs with 93% recyclable feature noted for this Eco friendly products. A local college- Rochester Institute of Technology is starting the first pH D program in sustainability focusing on manufacturing sector. These are wonderful developments to help fight global climate change.

In building sector, deconstruction is very important technique for helping save disposal costs and help support the recycle reuse industry which can produce new products for new building construction.

We are applying this approach in a local contaminated site redevelopment project in Churchville NY. An abandoned industrial plant site is planned to be converted to a small green housing community of 30 - 40 homes for seniors. The waste materials and metal buildings are sold to companies that have taken them apart with the intention of rebuilding them on their own site. It is our intention to reuse as much of the on site building facilities in our future building plans. Any items demolished will be ground up and used for site fill needs to minimize the amount disposed off site.

We hope that others will do the same, but FIRST we should be the change! as Gandhi said to lead by example. Sustainable communities should provide incentives and support to such developments.
Ram