Trash into your landscaping treasure 


Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!



ЗНАЕТЕ ЛИ ВЫ?

Trash into your landscaping treasure



READ THE TEXT AND RENDER IT IN WRITING, USING THE CLICHES:

Your first step when trying to minimize your building material inputs is to consider how much hardscape you really need. It isn’t necessary to pour a patio big enough to accommodate a wedding reception when you really just need someplace for the family to have dinner. Get into the habit of selfrestraint. After deciding how much hardscape you need, determine what you already have that you can use to build it. The first place you should look for materials is in your own backyard. What you have there is free, doesn’t need to be transported from elsewhere (burning up fossil fuels in the process), and isn’t doing much other than just sitting around. At first you may think that you don’t have anything useful, but I’m willing to bet you do. As you look around your property, make a list of anything that you could possibly transform into a landscape feature. For instance, here are some ideas:

✓ Use native stones to build walls, paths, and dry streambeds

✓ Harvest undesirable trees for lumber

✓ Break up an old patio and turn the pieces into stepping stones

If nothing else, there’s always soil, which you can turn into handsome arthen walls, benches, and even toolsheds. Visit Chapter 13 for details. Don’t overlook the neighbors’ yards. Their so-called trash may be just what you need for your hardscape (and won’t they be happy if you clean up their yards for them!). Also, consider reusing things that come from the community’s waste stream, such as broken concrete (now called urbanite, a brand-new mineral!), which you can easily turn into a lovely patio or a handsome dry-stacked low retaining wall. Similarly, old timbers on their way to the landfill can be used to build a raised bed or handsome footbridge. There are many ways to hunt down usable waste materials. Develop an eye for what might be salvaged from neighborhood remodels, cleanups, and construction projects. Tap local businesses for surplus materials. Scour craigslist, local classifieds, and bulletin boards. Dumpster dive. Everything old is new again: Salvaged and reclaimed materials Salvaged and reclaimed materials are resources that could have been wasted but are instead carefully saved and sold to willing buyers. In certain places, for example, you can buy wood that has been taken out of old barns (with the barn owner’s permission, of course). You can also purchase logs dredged up from underwater where they sank a century ago. This lumber isn’t cheap, but it’s sold at a fraction of what you’d pay for similarly gorgeous old-growth wood (if you could even find it).

If you can’t get your hands on used wood, note that modern portable lumber mills are circulating around some communities making usable lumber out of urban trees that have to be cut down for one reason or another. This lumber is sold at retail outlets and is usually advertised locally. Similarly, used bricks can be found in nearly any community; you’ll find them advertised in the classified section of the newspaper or online.

A search of the Web can often turn up amazingly cool things for sale that you can use to create a one-of-a-kind refuse-chic landscape feature. There are even stores around the country that sell used building materials of all kinds. Most of these are small mom-and-pop operations, but you can also check out the chain of ReStores, which is operated by the nonprofit group Habitat for Humanity. Purchases made at a ReStore benefit good works around the world.

Visit www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx to find a ReStore near you.

 

REINCARNATION: RECYCLED CONTENT MATERIALS

The difference between waste-stream or reclaimed materials and recycled ones is the degree of processing involved. You can use a waste-stream material, such as urbanite, as is, with no special work to make it into something else. It’s still just concrete when you’re done with it. But a recycled material, such as plastic lumber, goes into a factory as a big load of sticky pop bottles and comes out looking like a 2 x 6. You’d have a hard time guessing what it was made from.

Some people refer to recycling as downcycling or remanufacturing because the end product is so different from the ingredients that went into it. These folks also use this terminology because in most cases you can never take it in the other direction. For example, you couldn’t make soda bottles out of old plastic lumber. A few materials, such as aluminum and steel, are truly recyclable.

 

 

 



Поделиться:


Последнее изменение этой страницы: 2017-02-08; просмотров: 425; Нарушение авторского права страницы; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

infopedia.su Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав. Обратная связь - 54.208.238.160 (0.065 с.)