Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Is it safe to build beds or furniture with shipping pallets?

Everywhere we look online we see cool & beautiful furniture like beds & headboards made from recycled wood from shipping pallets - but could they be slowly poisoning us? Here's how to keep pallet furniture safe. Pallet beds - cool but potentially dangerous! We've all seen these rustic shabby-chic pallet wood beds &…

Where to buy and sell used building materials

Get money for your old building material and Find used building materials on classified lists and through online brokers. When buildings are decommissioned there can be a lot of valuable materials that could be used again, but when buyers can’t find sellers, otherwise usable materials are being sent to a land fill…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Recycled and reclaimed materials

Recycled building materials can add character to a home while you save money and reduce building waste in landfills. The cost of every item we purchase is determined in part by the price of oil. This includes products that are in no way petroleum based, since material extraction, manufacturing and transportation…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Reclaiming sunken timber from the log drive

Salvage companies are pulling up logs from the bottoms of rivers, where a century and a half of log drives has left behind a lot of great wood. As a kid growing up along the Gatineau River in Quebec, watching tugboats pulling log booms down the river was commonplace, and logs that got loose were a great source of…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

The rise of urban logging

Felled trees in residential areas have most often been either burned as waste, or taken to landfills. With the help of portable mills and tree salvage companies, better use is being made of this valuable resource. Milling lumber from your own trees It's always a bit sad to watch an old and seemingly healthy tree…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Old airplane fuselage is finding a new life as recycled building material.

Decommissioned aircraft getting second life as recycled metal is used as exterior cladding. They might be parked a little more precisely than an auto wrecking yard, but that doesn’t mean theses planes will ever fly again. Decommissioned aircraft have been declared so, because they have reached the end of their safe…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Building with recycled shipping pallets

built with 105 recycled shipping pallets, this innovative structure by b sq. Design Studio Inc. included walkways, a playhouse, a water feature, and vertical herb gardens that delighted visitors at the flower and garden festival. b sq. Design Studio Inc. is a Toronto-based landscape design and build firm that…

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Turning waste plastic into useable fuel

An emerging technology that can make use of waste plastic. Though we all diligently cart our plastic to the curb for recycling, the sad reality is that only about 7% of it is commercially viable for recycling, the rest ends up as landfill. Plastic is a petroleum product that until now has been very inconsistent and…