Using Recycled Materials In Landscaping
Posted: Saturday, January 12, 2008
by Val Ockert
Val Ockert & Associates
We are all becoming increasingly aware of our carbon footprint, the amount of energy required to fuel our lifestyle. While landscaping has many financial, health and aesthetic advantages it is an industry that consumes large amounts of energy through quarrying, processing, transport, and machine use. One way to modify that consumption is through the use of recycled materials.
1. Plastic Timber – a wood-like product made from recovered plastic or plastic mixed with other materials, which can be used as a substitute for wood, concrete and metal. It is an excellent material in landscaping
Uses:
- Stakes, decking, fences, gates, animal stalls.
- Retaining walls, sound barriers, car stops, walkways, railings.
- Flower pots, compost bins, irrigation hoses and fittings
- Park benches, picnic tables, playground equipment, wetlands walkways, park bridges, flower bed borders.
- Noise barriers, signposts, guard rail offset blocks, car stops, speed bumps.
Advantages
- Will not rot, requires no preservatives
- Resistant to moisture, bacteria growth and graffiti
- Chemical resistant & impervious to insects
- Clean, non-toxic & non-porous
- Splinter free, does not crack
- Long lasting, maintenance-free
- Cleans up with soap and water
- Does not need to be sealed
- Embedded colour, does not need paint
- Machineable...can be drilled, sawn and sanded
- Flexible, can be curved and shaped
- Saves money by lowering long-term maintenance costs.
- Creates additional business opportunities.
- Diverts plastic waste from landfills.
- Reduces wood waste, especially treated wood waste.
2. Rubber – ground rubber from scrap tires is used in crumb form, reconstituted into surfaces or mixed with asphalt
Uses:
- Turf - top dressing and incorporated into turf soil.
- Playground matting and loose crumbed rubber cushioning
- Reconstituted asphalt material for paving and surfacing ie. Playgrounds, trails, pathways, athletic tracks.
- Pavers
- Speed humps, parking curbs, wheel chair ramps, environmental spill barriers
Advantages:
- Inexpensive, durable, non slip, shock absorbing
- Low maintenance
Benefits
- Greenhouse gas and public health benefits result from diverting tires from landfills and tire piles. Currently, ground rubber consumes 33 million tires per year in the USA.
3. Glass – crushed, tumbled and graded glass is equivalent to ordinary sand or pebbles
Uses:
- Top dressing, soil mix, concrete mix, hydroponic medium
- Pebbles
- Mulch
- Reduces landfill and quarrying
4. Concrete – recovered, crushed concrete
Uses:
- Gravel
- Sub-base
- Retaining wall backfill
- Drainage
- Inexpensive
- Reduces landfill
5. Mulch
When choosing mulch consider where it is sourced from and if it is a waste product or not.
Uses:
- In your own garden try to retain and chip or compost all organic materials
- Buy green waste from local councils or tree lopper contractors
- Source wood chips from plantations, not primary forest
- T-tree mulch is a rich, good-looking waste by-product
- Water savings
- Creates a market for waste products
- Reduces landfill
6. Second-Hand Timber
Recovered timber is widely available and cheap. You can buy it sorted and cleaned or as it comes from a building site, if you don't mind preparing it yourself. There may be some waste which you can use as firewood but old wood is dry and dense, will not move or shrink and often has great character. Old, demolished buildings often contain rare and valuable woods, which are far more durable than the equivalent priced new timbers.
Uses:
- railway sleeper retaining walls
- garden edging
- stuctural work, beams, decking
- Usually better quality than new timber
- Inexpensive
- Adds character
- Reduces landfill
7. Pavers
Old existing pavers on a site can often be re-used by turning them over or cleaning and sorting them. Often old styles may not be available anymore so they are not easy to combine with new pavers but if you match the quantity you have with an secondary area that needs paving and lay them to a pattern which requires little cutting it will work out very economical.
When laying new pavers off-cuts that are too small to re-cut can be used as backfill, in drainage channels or, if they are clay they make good decorative mulch. Be careful when using concrete off- cuts for mulch because they can raise soil alkalinity.
Old porous clay house bricks when broken into rubble make an excellent medium for germinating ferns.
Uses:
- renovating
- drainage
- backfill
- mulch
- germination
- Saves money
- Reduces landfill
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