Recycling construction debris effectively

By Ibrahim Careys

Many builders are not ecological-friendly and hardly utilise debris effectively. Constructors and developers do not take homebuilding debris and leftovers seriously.

Rubble, unused sand, trickled cements, wall-hardening cardboards, painting papers, idle wood and all manners of waste and miscellaneous ravages remain on compounds, backyards and/or in the open after a contractor has finished building. With respect to the environment and conservation, this is wrong.

When leftover debris accumulates, the area turns into a dumping ground as people join in and throw litter on the spot. This is how huge waste dumps heap at access roads and backdoors of major municipals and urban cities. Such waste sites often turn to become major breeding grounds of virulent diseases.

Instead of dumping and recklessly throwing the debris away, one way to make better use of the pile is to reuse it as mulching agents. Here is how:

1. Collect all the debris into one common spot near the house.

2. Tidy up and reorganise the whole compound. Cut all unnecessary shrubs and remove unnecessary tools and objects that might hinder the exercise.

3. Dig along the walls and the fence to make trenches or holes to bury the litter.

4. Separate the debris before burying it. It is better to first crush the bigger bits for faster decomposition.

5. Bury the filtered debris into the furrows along the walls and fences. Mask the soil to allow the rubble to decompose. This takes time. It, however, hardens the soil profile of the entire home compound and its surroundings.

6. After burying the debris, reforest the area by planting flowers and grass. This will create an aesthetic appeal to your compound. If you don’t want your neighbours to dump their debris outside your wall, plant flowers there, too.

The writer is a management information systems

advisor.