Reverse Course: Why cities are choosing 'deconstruction' to tear down old buildings

Here & Now Anytime

WBUR

News

4.6 • 911 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Construction creates more than 600 million tons of trash in the U.S. every year. Now, some cities are making big changes to the way buildings are demolished. Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd reports. Then, the Trump administration has reversed an order freezing federal grants after it faced a court challenge from nonprofit organizations. Richard Trent, executive director of the Main Street Alliance, talks about how the order sparked confusion. And, results from the Nation's Report Card show that students still haven't recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Chalkbeat's Erica Meltzer joins us.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com.
0:16.3	In the deconstruction world, we talk a lot about. We recycle cans, but then we throw away entire houses.
0:22.6	Cans, sure, but can you really recycle a house? Absolutely.
0:36.4	It's Wednesday, January 29th, and this is Herein Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR.
0:42.8	I'm Chris Bentley.
0:46.8	Today on the show, the nation's report card, surveys, math, and reading skills, and fourth and eighth grade students every two years.
0:55.4	The latest results show kids still haven't made up the ground they lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1:02.7	Also, we'll hear from someone suing the Trump administration over the president's attempts to clawback billions of dollars in federal grants and loans to non-profits.
1:12.7	What we're talking about is real crippling effects for our local markets and our local economies.
1:17.9	It's very real. This isn't an abstract, esoteric. This is already impacting folks in their decision
1:22.8	making. But first, tearing down a building is a dirty business.
1:28.9	The construction industry creates about 600 million tons of trash every year, more than twice the amount of everyday garbage.
1:37.3	Mountains of used brick and shingles end up in the landfill.
1:41.3	So do window frames and lumber that could be reused. Even perfectly good
1:46.1	appliances are tossed in the trash. As part of our climate reporting project, reverse course,
1:51.7	Peter O'Dowd found that one place trying to fix the problem is Boulder, Colorado.
2:00.2	That Rocky Mountain City is where I met Anna Perks, a contractor who doesn't demolish
2:05.3	houses. She deconstructs them. In the deconstruction world we talk a lot about. We recycle cans,
2:11.3	but then we throw away entire houses. But not this one. Perks is taking down this 2,700 square foot home piece by piece.
2:19.8	We're in a historic neighborhood on Pearl Street near Boulder's charming downtown shopping district.
2:25.2	While the bones of the house are still standing, the inside is gutted down to the studs.
	...

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