The recyclable house...?

Remember when recycling was pretty much limited to a a small box the schools distributed for us to put our used printer paper in? No staples, no colored paper, and when they said used they really meant barely used...not painted on, not too much print, etc...

Well my friends, we have come quite a ways since then. It is really quite amazing what we can recycle now, and how relatively easy it is to do so.

As I've been reading up on Green initiatives as they related to Real Estate, I found this story in the Chicago Reader. Ken Ortiz, a certified deconstructionist in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, is keeping busy helping people literally take apart their homes, and reuse building materials for new construction.

Imagine for a minute, just in our own area, how many building materials have been hauled to the dump, when they could likely be reused....

Since 2009 (at least JANUARY 2009) seems to be my month of challenges... here's a new one for you. Let's see what we can do this year in terms of recycling things....reusing materials we would normally throw out, or at least putting stuff in the recycle bin more than in the trash bin.

My first re-use (that I was aware of anyway) happened just yesterday. As I was putting together IKEA bookshelves for the new home office, I reused the cardboard they came in to protect the bed frame we stuck in the attic. Pretty resourceful, huh! It's not quite the same as deconstructing a house, but hey, it's somethin!