We live in a throwaway economy. Advertising, built-in obsolescence, and undervaluing labor contribute to this system. Right-to-repair laws are pushing against this embedded pattern, with California being one of the leaders and early adopters. The construction industry generates massive amounts of waste when buildings are demolished or renovated — 22 percent of everything in landfills in California, according to a statewide waste study. When demolished, a typical 2,000-square-foot house produces around 240 cubic yards of debris.
Buildings account for 40 percent of global use of raw materials and are one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions. Deconstruction is an alternative to demolition. It is a careful process that involves taking apart a building to salvage reusable materials. Disassembling a building can be time-consuming and requires skilled workers, but it reduces the need for new materials, conserves energy, and minimizes environmental impact.
Offsetting the time issue is the tax advantage that the building owner can gain. IRS rules allow an owner to get a tax credit for materials being salvaged for reuse or recycling. After a site visit, an IRS qualified appraiser prepares an inventory of salvageable materials with their “fair market value” numbers, usually about a third of the cost of the same materials when purchased new. Separately, the owner contracts with a deconstruction contractor or their builder if the crew is skilled in deconstruction. Since 75-90 percent of materials in a home can be reused, repurposed, or recycled, the tax benefits often add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, these tax deductions can be claimed only when materials are donated to a nonprofit organization such as Habitat for Humanity or The ReUse People (TRP).
Why has deconstruction not gone mainstream? As mentioned, it is working against a system designed to make it easy for people to throw things away. Taking longer can also be a deterrent, but that can be lessened by disassembling interior spaces while waiting for permits. To encourage deconstruction, a community needs property with a building dedicated to storage and display of materials (like Habitat’s Reuse Stores). This requirement has been mostly offset by one successful program that sells most of the salvable materials on site before deconstruction begins. The final challenge is how to get contractors to use salvaged materials in their projects.
Although not mainstream, deconstruction does happen. Locally, the Miramar Hotel tile reuse project in Montecito donated large quantities of iconic blue roof tiles to affordable housing projects in the community. Rebuild Green deconstructs about 100 houses a year in the Bay Area. In 2016, Portland became the first city to institute an ordinance requiring deconstruction of single-family houses built before 1940 slated for removal. Half a dozen other cities have followed Portland’s example. Palo Alto requires the deconstruction of all residential and commercial buildings slated for removal regardless of age. Boulder mandates 75 percent of buildings by weight be diverted from landfills. Can Santa Barbara follow these examples?
