Can you build a whole building with just a door? It's a really nice door!
This is not a riddle.
No. You need more than just one part to build a building.
It turns out, you also cannot build a complete ecosystem of reuse of building materials with just one part (we tried). You need the whole system.
That's why we're building the complete system with the help of many innovative people and partnering companies.
Our story started with this...
The huge and ever-growing problem we are taking on...
According to the US EPA in a 2018 study,
“Construction & Demolition Waste” (C & D Waste ) is the #1 largest category of waste in America. C & D Waste is twice as large as #2, “Municipal Waste,” which is all the trash, garbage, and recycling from all 330 million Americans at home and work, all year long. Twice.
Of the total of C & D Waste, approximately 50% is from buildings. The rest is from roads, bridges, and highways. These figures change every year, but the percentage is a useful comparison.
It started more than a century ago. Three inventions aided our ability to destroy and dispose quickly and cheaply: the steam engine, dynamite, and the wrecking ball.
Land was abundant. For a long time, no one seemed to care.
Straight from our founder's sketchbook, here’s a generalized look at the current model of sourcing, processing, selling, and distribution of used building materials.
Which begs the question...
WHAT IF?
What if building materials were removed from older buildings and routinely reused in new ones?
What would need to change for that to happen?
"You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - R. Buckminster Fuller
"The New Model of Distribution of Recaptured Building Materials"
So, how does ReCapturit help America to build this complete ecosystem of building materials #REUSE one city at a time?
First, we need to know where we're going and how we'll get there: the Vision and the Mission.
The VISIONis where we're going:
ReCapturit's Vision is to by 2029 be the principal architect and key catalyst in the complete transformation of the most wasteful practice of destroy-and-dispose of building materials into reuse and life extension of these valuable resources by implementing The New Model of Distribution of Recaptured Building Materials™.
The MISSION is how we get there:
ReCapturit's Mission is to implement The New Model of Distribution of Recaptured Building Materials and make them available nationwide to the community of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) plus developers and building owners for profitable new markets and projects.
There are three main building components of
The New Model of Distribution of Recaptured Building Materials™
plus the foundation on which they stand.
CHANNELS of SALES and DISTRIBUTION
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
STORAGE and PROCESSING
COLLABORATION COMMUNITY
We do this by working with cities and counties in America to build
The New Model of Distribution
of Recaptured Building Materials™
This captures the would-be-waste of the Construction and Demolition industries diverting these enormous volumes of materials from the doom cycle of destroy-and-dispose. It channels them as raw materials into the new system of processing, cataloging, and storing and makes them available for sale and distribution to a much larger audience of buyers for more and bigger projects.
Chris Rausch Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE, Assistant Professor
Director, Equitable Technologies for Housing Innovation Center (ETHIC) The University of Texas at Austin | Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
