Old materials find new uses: Aim is to reduce waste
Thanks to the community’s support of the 2013 bond measure, two more new school buildings are nearly complete.
Sustainability is a goal right from the start. Not only will the new schools be more energy-efficient and sustainable—designed to the equivalent of LEED Silver standards—sustainability also is taken into account in removing the old buildings they will replace.
As summer begins, the district is quickly moving out of the old Arts & Technology Academy and River Road/El Camino del Río Elementary School buildings so they can be demolished. After the old buildings come down this summer, the space where they stood will be converted to parking areas, athletic fields and other outdoor space to surround the schools’ new, energy efficient, modern learning facilities that will open this fall.
So where does all the stuff go? Within the construction schedule’s tight timeline, the district strives to find new uses for replaced materials.
Materials that will be used in the new building—teachers’ classroom materials, library books and other items—are packed and moved. Then the district takes steps to find ways to reuse or recycle the remaining items left in the buildings.
First, materials are salvaged to reuse in other 4J facilities. Desks, doorknobs, chairs, bookshelves, kitchen gear, building materials and other items that are in good condition, suitable, and expected to be needed for reuse in other 4J schools are taken to the other school locations or put in storage for future use.
Second, an auction service gathers items that may be of value for resale.
Third, the district invites other schools, such as charter schools and schools in other districts, to salvage any remaining items they find of use.
Next, BRING Recycling and other local nonprofit organizations are invited to sort through and take any materials for reuse or recycling. For example, when the old Howard school building was being replaced last year, surplus kitchen equipment was donated to the Eugene Mission, which had lost all of its kitchen equipment in a fire.
Finally, as the demolition progresses, metal building materials and anything else the contractor finds to be of value are salvaged and reused or recycled.
Each step finds new uses for more materials. In the end, most items and much of the old school building materials are reused or recycled.
