Recycled Brick Sep14

Recycled Brick

Two new recycled brick products offer energy efficient, low-cost solutions for your next green building project. WasteBasedBricks, manufactured by Amsterdam-based StoneCycling, produces bricks by creating a composite of demolition waste, rejected clay, leftover ceramics, insulation, and glass. Clients can chose between machined bricks for large-scale products as well as intriguing handmade bricks for accents and special features. Bricks range from 70 percent to 100 percent recycled product. Each building material is collected within a 150-kilometer radius of the factories that collaborate with StoneCyling.The proximity to manufacturing hubs keeps transportation costs and emissions low. By integrating salvaged building materials, the company is able to reduce the amount of construction waste that is shipped to landfills. “We like to use only secondary materials,” Ward Massa, co-owner of StoneCycling, explained to FastCoexist. “That way it doesn’t end up somewhere in the landfill or being sent to other countries—we reuse it as new raw materials.” StoneCycling keeps production costs low, which allows the company to pass savings on to clients: StoneCycling can also skip clay excavation and processing costs. Manufacturing the product requires less energy than traditional bricks. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Green Leaf Brick raises the bar on green building materials by offering several lines of 100 percent recycled materials. Each product is 100 percent refuse content and as much as 30 percent post consumer waste. Green Leaf Brick, a creation of Red Tree Group, developed the bricks in response to the loads of construction waste heading to American landfills. The company aims to make use of waste streams with little residual commercial use. Brick products include more than 25 recycled raw materials. Different combinations of those materials result in a line of aesthetically stunning bricks and pavers in a wide range of colors and textures. There...