ZERO by FIFTY Construction Materials Management Survey

The City of Missoula has set a course to become Montana’s first Zero Waste community and has committed to the goal of “Zero Waste” by the year 2050. As part of Missoula’s ZERO BY FIFTY effort, the City along with Home ReSource have been working to engage community stakeholders, contractors, home owners, and others on the topic of Construction and Deconstruction in the building industry.

While we are in the process of understanding our waste composition in Missoula, we know that nationally a significant amount (15-40%) of the materials ending up in the landfill are from construction projects. Houses and buildings are most often demolished and sent to the landfill, rather than deconstructed so that materials can be reused. Material such as lumber, concrete, cabinets, doors and windows often still hold value in our community and are ideally kept from being tossed in the landfill.

This survey is intended to gather information so that Home ReSource can put together some short, medium, and long-term recommendations so that our community can reduce the amount of construction materials going to our local landfill, and encourage reuse of those materials instead.