Tobacco Company to Deconstruct 10 Factories

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is preparing to tear down nearly 70 years of history when it demolishes ten tobacco storage warehouses near Winston-Salem, N.C.

However, advancements in the deconstruction industry ensure that many of the valuable and reusable materials that composed the structures will live on long after the buildings are gone.

What were once wood beams in the buildings made for aging tobacco will become furniture pieces; what was once concrete flooring and foundation will be crushed and reused to make parking lots, bridges and road bases.

Deconstructing is the practice of disassembling a building in a manner that allows for the reuse of materials for new construction.

According to Bob Falk of the U.S. Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisc., deconstructing is rarely implemented because many people do not realize they can salvage materials from soon-to-be torn down buildings.

Deconstructing is a viable, green alternative to plain-old demolishing. Each year more than 1 billion board feet of salvageable framing lumber from torn down houses - enough to frame about 75,000, 2,500-square-foot houses - is available for reuse. Photo: Washingtonpost.com

Materials obtained for reuse from the deconstructing process include:

• Joists
• Siding
• Light fixtures
• Hardwood flooring
• Framing lumber
• Solid wood paneled doors
• Concrete
• Plumbing fixtures

Oftentimes the materials obtained from the deconstruction process on older buildings are extremely valuable. Wood is one such material, with precious hardwoods such as long-leaf pine, hemlock and Douglas fur, once common in the building process around the turn of the 20th century.

As opposed to traditional demolishing, deconstructing takes more time to complete. However, the environmental and social benefits of deconstruction are significant. According to the Building Materials Reuse Association, these benefits include:

• Reducing the consumption of new resources
• Minimizing landfill waste and pollution
• Creating value-added markets from waste materials
• Expanding job opportunities and workforce development skills

Some in the deconstructing industry are even calling for a greater emphasis in the way the point system of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification is constructed so as to encourage greater reuse of deconstructed materials. An observer on the Building Materials Reuse Association website suggests that only the upper echelon of gold and platinum certifications tend to source building materials from deconstructed structures.

As for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the company sees the reuse of the materials from its old tobacco processing facilities as a way to practice corporate responsibility and make the company’s past a part of the future.