Can we be Zero Waste ourselves and when building our homes?

One of the things that differentiates green homes from traditionally built homes is that the builder strives to build the home without having any or a lot of waste materials left at the end of the job. This week I attended a zero waste seminar sponsored by the Orange County Board of Realtors and presented by Stephanie Barger of Earth Resource Foundation and Evan Little of Surterre Properties. Although I knew most of the information presented, it was a great refresher.

Earth Resources educates people of Re-useing, Re-ducing and THEN Re-cycling anything you come across in life. One should always strive to reduce first. Do you know the average amount of trash each person produces every day is 4.6 pounds? However, in Orange County it is a whopping 6.7 pounds! - we love our pre-packaged foods and Starbucks here, I guess. Yes, packaging creates the most waste in our daily lives and also in construction projects. One lumber company reduced the packaging on their palettes of wood and saved the company overall millions of dollars. You may have heard of the Ricoh success story of getting the company to zero waste to landfills, which they achieved Feb 2001, saving the company millions in hauling and dump fees for both Ricoh and their clients, as well as gaining great reputation for their company as concerned for the environment.

So, back to green home building.

Pre-fabricated homes (such as livinghomes.net), container homes (such as: http://www.nikiomahe.com/ ) and manufactured homes (http://www.mhcenter.com/) create the least amount of left over waste at the end of construction compared to traditional construction practices but of course, the winner is the Earthship, as most of the construction materials are from the recycling center to start with! http://www.earthship.net/

I have connections to great green contractors as well as of course lots of lots for sale in the Southern California area if you want to build one!