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It’s weird to think that something as mundane at roofing shingles can be the newest member to the whole green movement of recycling and reuse, but alas, here we are. That’s right folks, you can now add shingle recycling to the list of ways that you can help save the world. If you think about it makes sense that someone came up with a way to recycle shingles. Heck, you can recycle just about anything now-a-days. The truly amazing thing to me is not that it can be recycled, but that someone actually came up with the idea of making a money-making enterprise off of it. In a strange way, I find it almost inspiring that someone took a look a shingles and went “Hey, there has to be a way to make money off of all those used ones.”
Let me clarify something though: we aren’t talking about just reusing the old shingles, we are talking about grinding them up and then reforming them into a useable mulch. Think of it as making brand new shingles and other materials out of old shingle mulch, kind of like what happens with wood in particle board. Besides the fact that you’re being green by reusing old material, one of the best things about shingle recycling is that it clears up some much needed room in the landfills, which is always good news considering how much of our land has been dedicated to our trash in the last century.
It seems like, as a society, we have become blind to the idea that landfills still exist. What used to be places that were in public view where we would drop off our own garbage has now become a place where we can’t even find with the help of a map. Do you have any idea where a landfill is around you? Frankly I have no clue, which is sad considering that my trash will be there for years to come. That is why the idea of recycling is so important. Not so much because of the green movement, or because of how trendy it has become, but because the concept of the landfill has become so unnecessary now that we have the technology to reuse almost everything that buy or consume.
That’s what is so amazing about stuff like shingle recycling: we’ve now gotten to the point where we can literally recycle everything. As long as people can make money they will find new ways to recycle old products, which, if you about, is something that everyone can get behind: capitalism and the environment.
Author Kim Green hopes people adopt the practice of shingle recycling to help preserve natural resources.
There is an old comedy bit by George Carlin about the idea of “stuff”. The bit talks about how we have so much stuff that finding places to put our stuff takes up much of our time. When we are at home we have our stuff set out exactly as we like it, and then when we go on vacation we take smaller versions of our stuff to make sure we aren’t without it (I’m not doing this justice, go listen to the original).
If you think about it, your “stuff” includes just about everything, even your actual physical house. And frankly, your house, or home, is just a collection of stuff put together to make a dwelling. This includes everything from wood to bricks to paint to drywall to shingles, blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, if you are looking to remodel your dwelling you’re going to have a lot of “stuff” (i.e. garbage) to take care of. Luckily for you, though, you can recycle just about anything now-a-days.
I read something the other day about “shingle recycling” during remodeling. That’s right, it’s exactly what you’re thinking: those old shingles that you are taking off and replacing with newer models can be ground down and reused again. There are actually companies now who will pick them up from your worksite and haul them off to a new life. It’s frankly amazing not only that just about anything from your old torn down house can be easily recycled, but also how much of a business has sprung up around recycling the products. There are companies that make their living off of the “stuff” that we are throwing away. That is both capitalism and environmentalism at its best.
Most of these recycling companies don’t charge, or only charge a nominal fee, to come and haul away stuff such as shingles, wood, dry wall or copper wiring. While you’re not personally making a profit on the recycling of these products, a call to these recycling companies will save you money as it means that you have less garbage to throw away and thus won’t have to rent those giant dumpsters that cost so much. So let’s review: good for the environment, good for the pocket book and good for the economy: not bad for a bunch of “stuff” you were just going to throw away.
Author Kim Green is very interested in reusing resources such as shingle recycling.
They say that the first step to conquering any addiction is being able to first admit your issue. With that in mind, I should just come out and say it: I have an addiction, a bad one. Me, and my husband, are completely addicted to Home and Garden Television.
It started as just a few minutes of television before bed, then two hours later after watching couples flipping houses, changing rooms and even shingle grinding, we were completely hooked. Now, what used to be reading time has become HGTV time, and our movies nights are now used to eat popcorn while watching a couple of shows on Home and Garden. It’s embarrassing, if only because it’s cutting into our lives like the World Cup might do into a soccer fans.
If anything, I can say that this new addiction to HGTV has awakened a feeling that I haven’t had for a while: a need to spruce up the house. Now, I’m not going to flip my house and sell it for a profit (that seems like way too much work for me), or even add an extra room or something. No, I think I might go for redoing one of my rooms, like the kitchen, and adding a few more shelves to the closets. Of course, how fun this will be when I finally get to it will be determined.
By far the most addicting show on the Home and Garden Television network is House Hunters: International. This is a show where couples looking to move out of the United States to an international location search houses in a specific area to find the right one for them. For example, I recently watched a show where a couple from Minneapolis was looking to move to a location in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. So they traveled down there, met with a local realtor and looked over three different locations around the city.
What makes the show so addiction is a combination of a few things. First off, you get to see locations around the world up close. Secondly, you get to see the different styles of homes in an area, and view the tradeoffs that these couples have to decide on. And third, with it being reality television, because they are given an option of three different houses you get to root which house you would pick and critique their ultimate decisions. Isn’t second guessing the best part about reality television anyway?
Author Kim Green loves to watch productive people improve their by shingle grinding and other useful tasks.
It’s amazing when you realize how much can be recycled nowadays. Whether or not you fully buy into the current “green” movement you have to admit that scientists have found a way to make just about everything reusable.
We all know about cans, plastics and glass. Chances are we recycle those every day, whether it’s separating them for the city to recycle or taking them to the centers ourselves. What is really impressive, though, is how much of the things that we throw away can be easily recycled. I have a friend who is a contractor who told me about something called shingle grinding. I know, I know, I had never heard of it either, but when I learned what it was about it just seemed so obvious.
Shingle grinding is the act of grinding up used asphalt shingles so that they can be used in road and sidewalk building materials. Apparently there are companies that specialize in this process who will come to your business and pick up the materials. Until I heard this I would have never imagined that something like this existed, but it seems pretty cool.
If you think about it, just about everything can, and should, be recycled in today’s economic and scientific landscape. Just like in shingle grinding, there are entire business that are based around recycling materials. I’m sure you’ve heard of the newest craze which is recycling old tires and sneakers to make new playgrounds and basketball courts. That has become big projects in inner-cities and suburbs alike, usually spearheaded by tire and sneaker companies. Companies have also started setting up recycling programs for cell phones, batteries, televisions and computers.
What used to sit in a landfill has now become big business for recycling companies. If you’re razing and then rebuilding your house, almost every part of your original structure can be recycled. While you may know that materials like metal, glass and wood can be either sold or donated to recycling programs, very few people know that previously “trashed” materials like drywall and wiring can be recycled. That’s right, you read that correctly: drywall. There are state programs and private companies that will pick up the used drywall, reprocess it and then form it into brand new drywall. This saves hundreds of tons of drywall from sitting and rotting in garbage dumps around the world.
If you have something to recycle and you don’t know whether it will be accepted somewhere, do a little research. You’ll probably find some company that will take it off your hands and reuse it.
Kim Green feels that education on recycling efforts such as shingle grinding will lead to increased natural resource efficiency.
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