Deconstruction rather than demolition
The average 3-bedroom house contains about 25 tonnes of construction material, and although there are some incredibly skilled digger operators, they’re never going to match the quality of material that a deconstruction crew can recover.
That’s why from September 2018 - July 2021, Envision was involved in trying to find community-led solutions for deconstructing houses. We even got our own hands dirty and in September 2018, Envision and the Helensville Community Recycling Centre, completed a trial deconstruction of a 3-bedroom, 1950s house.
We wanted to find out how much of the unwanted house could be diverted from landfill by careful deconstruction, and if it was financially feasible. Our trial:
Diverted 87% of the material from landfill
Showed that deconstruction can match and sometimes surpass demolition on price,
Achieved an incident free Health and Safety record
Engaged only local workers and corrections community service workers
Built a proven business model for community led deconstruction
The whakapapa of this project can be traced back to Rekindle's work after the Christchurch earthquakes with the Whole House Reuse Project.
Having been inspired by their work, Envision supported Rekindle to develop a materials recovery plan, which received government funding, following the Kaikōura earthquakes.
Around the same time Envision was working with the Tāmaki Regeneration Company trialling the deconstruction of three houses and developing the business case for deconstruction over demolition.
Treena talking to Kathryn Ryan, Radio New Zealand, 27th Sept 2018
Over 40% of Auckland’s waste is from construction and demolition activities, so we were wrapt to be able to work with Auckland Council’s Waste Solutions Team from mid 2019 - July 2021 to support the development of community-led deconstruction enterprises and initiatives to reduce this growing waste stream. We have made the resources and findings from this work available here, please feel free to use however you wish: Deconstruction Resources for Community Organisations.
