Construction must be more sustainable and we must therefore use building materials more economically. Reuse is the magic word and that means that ‘harvesting’ is the new demolition. At steel company VicObdam, old steel constructions are given a new life and building materials dealer Floris in Wormerveer has recently started selling second-hand bricks.
Bob Floris, director of the more than 100-year-old family business, has been selling building materials for generations. Originally, baking stitches and a lot of sand were sold, but the company has to keep up with the times. Sand can hardly be found in Wormerveer and the bricks have recently become second-hand; stones that are ready for a second life after demolition.
In principle, bricks can last indefinitely. However, they must be ‘cleaned’, which involves chipping an old stone with a hammer. The old mortar (glue between the stones) must also be removed. The stones are then ready to be used again.
“If you incorporate this into a wall, you see a lived stone,” says Bob Floris. He wants to give customers the guarantee that if a building is demolished, the company will take the bricks back. This way you can continue to use the stones indefinitely.
Bricks from after the war to the 1980s are especially suitable for reuse. After that, the mortar was so strong that old stones can no longer be harvested properly. It remains a painstaking task to chip the old stones completely clean.
It is indeed manual work, according to Bob, but so is bricklaying. “I see it as bricklaying in reverse.” To make it easier to harvest bricks, the company is now working on mortar that is easier to separate from the bricks.
At Steel Company VicObdam they are keen to work circularly, but that does mean that the entire chain must participate. Clients in particular often opt for the certainty of new steel instead of used steel. Now only ten percent of old steel is used, but we have to work in a different way, the steel company notes.
Director Pieter Klijn wants a special online marketplace for used steel, so that you can see at a glance what is on offer. He also thinks that reuse can be encouraged if the government comes up with stricter rules. “People need to be taken out of their comfort zone in order to change,” says Klijn.
Used steel is just as good as new steel and can last indefinitely. “Look at the Eiffel Tower, it is still there,” said Pieter Klijn. Some adjustments usually have to be made before ‘donor steel’ can be reused. Complete steel structures have been reused in a new construction project in Leiden.
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