One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
Or at least that’s how Gil Yaron describes the concept of a new exchange program on Vancouver Island, which allows construction companies to sell or swap leftover job site materials, rather than sending them to the landfill.
Yaron is the managing director of circular innovation at Light House, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization focused on increasing sustainable practices in the construction sector. The Building Material Exchange program (BMEx) is the latest one of their efforts to cut down on waste.
According to a report by Circular Economy Leadership Canada, about 3.4 million tonnes of construction materials are sent to landfills each year in Canada. BMEx looks to change that.
“Basically it’s like a matchmaking program,” Yaron said.
Construction companies reach out to BMEx, either because they have leftover materials — concrete, wood, carpeting and the like — or because they are in search of something, and then the program does its best to connect supply with demand.
Yaron said he has so far contacted hundreds of companies in and around Nanaimo, Victoria, Cowichan Valley and Duncan to identify their needs.
By the first week of November, Light House also plans to have an online marketplace up and running, which will allow companies to connect with each other directly and buy, sell, trade or donate job site materials.
The goal of the both programs is threefold: to reduce the environmental toll of unnecessary resource extraction and waste, decrease the volume of material ending up in B.C. landfills — some of which are already at peak capacity — and cut down on construction costs.
Gil Yaron is the managing director of circular innovation at Light House, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization focused on increasing sustainable practices in the construction sector. (Trevan Wong)
Yaron said it takes a lot of resources to mine and harvest construction materials, so finding a way to salvage them when parts go unused is paramount.
“…we’re really throwing valuable materials away,” he said.
And all of those discarded bits and pieces build up quickly.
In Metro Vancouver in 2022, construction and demolition waste made up one-third of overall trash in the region.
Elsewhere in B.C., the impact is smaller, but still notable. In Squamish, job site scraps account for 12 per cent of waste, while in Nanaimo they make up about five per cent.
“We’re filling up landfills very quickly,” Yaron said, adding that dumps are both costly to run and difficult to expand.
In 2023, Vancouver came just shy of reaching its landfill capacity, filling 744,000 of its available 750,000 tonnes.
In an attempt to address the looming space shortage, Metro Vancouver last year committed up to $150 million over the next five years to have any waste that exceeds the region’s landfill limit shipped to the U.S. or Interior B.C.
One of the companies keen to cut down on its waste and try out the new material exchange program is a precast concrete business in Victoria.
Szolyd Development president Trevor Harmon said he hopes incorporating some repurposed materials — such as old foundations or sidewalks — into their concrete production will help lower costs.
He said salvaging and reusing old materials can be labour-intensive and, therefore, expensive when done at a small scale, but that he believes it will cut overall costs once the practice is expanded.
He added he’s also interested in the sustainability side of things.
“That personally resonated with me and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
Trevor Harmon is the president of Szolyd Development, a precast concrete business in Victoria that has signed on to a new material exchange program. (Trevor Harmon)
The program is being funded by the Nanaimo, Cowichan Valley and Capital regional districts.
Ben Geselbracht, chair of the Nanaimo Regional District’s solid waste committee, said their portion will be aided by a $30,000-grant, which is awarded each year to projects that divert waste from landfills.
“The more that we can keep materials that have already been removed from the natural landscape, the less wear on the planet and also the more space we have in our landfills,” Geselbracht said.
Yaron echoed Geselbracht, saying he believes it’s important to keep building materials in circulation for as long as possible.
Next month, he is hosting two Dragons’ Den-style events for people in the construction industry to pitch sustainable product or operation ideas to an audience of investors and industry representatives.
For instance, Yaron said, Habitat for Humanity is planning on presenting a plan to open a physical hub for reselling excess construction materials at a lower price.
The “BMX Challenge” will run in Nanaimo on Nov. 5 and in Victoria on Nov. 6.