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Materials and Waste: Further Reading

Many of the best up to date resources to be found on this topic are on-line sources. A good starting place for conducting further research is The New Autonomous House: designing and planning for sustainability (2000), which provides charts and statistics for numerous building materials and products, as well as background information as to why certain materials are better than others. Several options are provided throughout the book.

To learn more about the significance of materials and waste in the construction of green buildings, Kilbert’s Construction Ecology Nature as the Basis for Green Buildings (2002) is a particularly good resource. This book provides the basic building blocks to understanding why materials and waste flows are so important. Kilbert nicely illustrates this principle and presents it in a way that is easily understandable.

For information concerning the importance of recycling and multiple use products, Kimball’s Recycling in America: A Reference Handbook (1992) is a perfect place to begin. This book is an information source for recycling facts, data, laws, and regulations, as well as a directory of recycling organizations. Though it does not seem to directly deal with choosing recycled materials, it can aid in the disposal of construction waste .

Rennie and MacLean’s Salvaging the Future: Waste-based Production (1989) is another book that deals with recycling and materials/waste flow issues. It looks into paper, glass, plastics, and aluminum, tracking their flows into municipal solid waste or industrial waste. Building from recycled or reused materials is one way to divert these flows from landfills. A number of interesting statistics for the markets of recycled materials are also given.

In addition to the number of books discussed briefly above, other resources, such as case studies, have been reviewed and evaluated. One publication that is helpful is a collection of case studies conducted locally by Lola Schoenrich. To further investigate the functionality of cooperatively marketing recyclables in rural areas, Case Studies of Seven Rural Programs Cooperatively Marketing Recyclables (Project Report and Synopsis) is a very good reference. In fact, one of the cases looked at the Southeast MN Recyclers Exchange. The situation in central Minnesota and our campuses is probably quite similar to the one discussed in this case. One of the program’s goals was to improve market stability for recyclables, which benefits buyers both directly and indirectly.