Bostonians do it bigger

On the topic of Boston, the city seems to be working hard at reclaiming lost space. The Big Dig is moving an elevated highway underground, releasing prime downtown land for the Rose Kennedy Greenway and restoring the connection of the city with the waterfront. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority provides images, plans and descriptions of how the greenway transformation will be done - while removing the highway frees up 30 acres, the total project will create more than 300 acres of landscaped and restored open space, including over 45 parks and major public plazas. The old Central Artery isn't cleared away yet, but the last car drove the highway last weekend.

Whether the Big Dig was worth its $15 billion price tag is another story, but two spinoff projects provide some compensation. One is the Big Dig House that I mentioned in April. Here's another description of how the house reused material from the Central Artery in a way that could be replicated in other building projects. Small in scale, big in ideas.

The other project is reclamation of a 105-acre waste dump on Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor by covering it with 6 million tons of material from the Big Dig tunnelling, creating a new park complete with solar-powered visitor centre with exhibits and information on the island's history. And can the planners be faulted for installing a composting toilet atop an "80-foot-high mound of trash"? [via Metaboston]

how to recycle a highway

A modern, award-winning house built entirely from material salvaged from Boston's dismantled elevated artery: the Big Dig House.

burning down the house

Cape Town, 1985: Tyres are burning in the streets in protest against apartheid laws.

Cape Town, 2007: Tyres are burning in the streets to extract scrap metal that can be sold to dealers for recycling.

The air pollution is horrendous, and South Africa has now published draft waste tyre regulations for comment. There are at least two possibilities for disposing of the 11 million scrapped tyres each year in South Africa. One is to grind them for use in rubber carpets, athletic tracks and tarmac. The other is to burn them in kilns as an alternative energy source.

[Source: Cape Times, 12 March 2007]

salvaging demolished buildings

In the US, up to 40 percent of solid waste is construction and demolition debris, and only 35 to 45 percent of this debris actually makes it into properly designated landfills. The vast majority of this waste is from renovation and demolition, so there is a strong need to deconstruct buildings rather than bulldoze them, so that materials can be reused. This means that buildings should be designed to make deconstruction easier.

In South Africa there is a nascent industry in crushing concrete for reuse, and salvaging bricks for resale. Some of this activity is creating jobs in the informal sector for enterprising individuals who sell bricks at the side of the road, but demolition companies have been selling timber, windows, doors and other building fittings for a number of years. In fact, some of these sell at a premium, satisfying market demand for older building items.

glassy jobs

A new nonprofit organisation in South Africa aims to increase the glass recycling rate from 20% to 50% within five years, and in the process create informal jobs. South Africa currenlty retrieves only 140 000 tons of all glass containers for recycling annually, with 550 000 tons going to landfill. In comparison, Holland recycles 90%, Australia 50%, Britain 45% and Brazil 40%. The Glass Recycling Company hopes to create 4000 informal jobs in the first year.

[Source: Cape Argus, 8 Dec 2006.]

SA and Swiss partner to dispose of e-waste

The City of Joburg has set up 25 public collection points for discarded computers, cellphones, microwaves and other electronic equipment. This e-waste will go to recycling companies for dismantling, reducing waste going to landfill sites. About 70% of South Africa's e-waste is thought to be in storage, representing up to 20,000 tons of waste. Switzerland will use its decade-long experience in recycling e-waste to help Joburg's waste management utility, Pikitup.

[Source: The Star (Johannesburg), 17 November 2006]

The Star in Johannesburg reports:

In 2004 more than 180-million PCs were sold worldwide. In the same year, an estimated 100-million obsolete PCs entered the waste streams... In South Africa, it is estimated that betweeen 1.2 and 1.5 million computers enter the market each year.