Benefit Calculator
Green House Gas
Consider your 2,000 square foot house.
Keeping its lumber and panel products out of the landfill will avoid the generation of greenhouse gases comparable to removing 2.86 passenger cars from the road.
Recycling the steel and plastic would reduce green house gas production by an amount equal to the absorption of 113.60 trees.
Reusing the wood avoids the production of 500 pounds of green house gases.
Each year the United States buries about 33 million tons of wood related construction and demolition
debris in our landfills. As anaerobic microorganisms decompose this wood, it will release about 5 million
tons of carbon equivalent in the form of methane gas.
This is equivalent to the yearly emissions of 3,736,000 passenger cars.
As discussed in the Energy category, producing new building materials from recycled, rather than virgin, materials consumes less energy. Consuming less energy means burning fewer fossil fuels, which in turn means producing fewer green house gases.
The average single family home contains 5,174 pounds of steel and 1,830 pounds of plastics. Net green house gas reduction from recycling this material is 2,956 pounds, a benefit equivalent to the annual CO2 absorption of 114 trees.
Every ton of wood that is reused avoids the creation of 60 pounds of green house gases that would have been created to harvest and mill new lumber.
Thanks to Tim Williams at the University of Florida Center for Construction and Environment for producing this interactive calculator.
