A house is more than the materials from which it is built. It is a place where memories accumulate. The walls of our homes are silent witnesses to our lives. They stand through family celebrations, ordinary afternoons, childhood memories, and moments of change. But when we move away, or when a house is demolished to make room for something new, do these materials necessarily reach the end of their useful lives?

What we call waste is not necessarily something that has become useless or reached the end of its existence. Often, it is simply something that has lost its place in the framework of human activities that once gave it purpose. When a building is demolished, a brick remains a brick, wood remains wood, and stone remains stone. What disappears is not the material itself, but the arrangement of relationships that once gave those materials meaning and function. Why do we treat materials that still have value as though their useful lives are over?

For Kamloops, a city preparing for significant residential growth over the next two decades, this question is becoming increasingly relevant. Construction is one of the foundations of Kamloops’ economy. According to the 2021 Census, the industry accounts for approximately 9% of local employment, making it one of the city’s largest employment sectors. Its economic contributions extend far beyond construction sites. New development supports tradespeople, engineers, architects, transportation companies, building suppliers, manufacturers, and other local businesses. Construction also plays a critical role in addressing the housing shortage. Growing communities need additional homes, infrastructure, and services. But the benefits of development come with environmental costs that rarely receive the same attention as new housing building permit values. Globally, buildings account for approximately 30-40% of primary energy consumption and 40-50% of greenhouse gas emissions (Pristera et al., 2024). One often overlooked environmental cost is the waste generated through construction and demolition. In BC, construction and demolition waste has been estimated to account for approximately one third of municipal solid waste (UBCM, 2021). In the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD), the 2025 Five-Year Effectiveness Review of its Solid Waste Management Plan found that building materials represented 45% of the residual waste stream from demolition, renovation, and construction activities in 2024, greater than 24% in 2021. However, these materials may still have value if they can be recovered, separated, and reused.

Kamloops is planning for a substantial increase to the population. The city’s 2025 Official Community Plan anticipates approximately 30,000 additional residents by 2045, requiring around 14,000 new housing units to accommodate population growth.  Approximately 70% of that development is expected to occur within existing urban areas rather than on undeveloped land. While some infill developments occur on vacant or underused land, others involve demolishing existing buildings, typically older structures with lower improvement values, to reduce redevelopment costs. Based on City of Kamloops building permit reports, approximately 34 demolition permits were issued annually, on average, between 2021 and 2025.  A building removed to accommodate several new homes may represent a positive step toward addressing housing needs. However, achieving that outcome should not automatically mean sending reusable lumber, windows, doors, flooring, and other building components to the landfill. Urban growth and waste reduction do not have to be competing objectives. 

Transitioning from a Linear Economy to a Circular Economy 

At the November 5, 2026 event in Kamloops library on “Canada and the Climate Crisis: Where Do We Go from Here?”, climate experts raised questions on potential solutions for advancing a circular economy. For decades, conventional demolition has been the standard approach to removing buildings. This is the result of a linear economic model that relies on raw materials being inexhaustible and products being produced, consumed, and discarded at a rapid rate to create the need for new products (Stenberg et al., 2022). Deconstruction, based on the principles of the circular economy, offers an alternative. Rather than treating a building as an object to be destroyed, deconstruction treats it as a collection of materials and components that may have another useful life. Through dismantling, often involving significant manual labour, materials such as lumber, doors, windows, cabinets, flooring, fixtures, and architectural details can be recovered for reuse.

Reusing building materials can reduce demand for newly extracted resources, avoid some manufacturing related greenhouse gas emissions, and preserve landfill capacity. Cement production alone is accountable for 5-8% of all global carbon emissions (Stenberg et al., 2022). It can also reduce the energy required to process materials into new products. Importantly, deconstruction distinguishes between reuse and recycling. Recycling generally involves processing a material into another usable form. Reuse preserves the material or component for another application, often with much less processing. A wood beam salvaged from an old home might become a structural or decorative feature in another building. Cabinets, doors, or windows could have a second life and serve another household (Coelho and Brito, 2013). In a typical home deconstruction, up to 25% of materials can be reused and up to 70% of materials can be recycled (Metro Vancouver Construction and Demolition Waste Reduction Toolkit). 

Built in 1910 in Vancouver, this house was deconstructed by Unbuilders in 2018. Approximately 92% of its building materials were diverted from disposal through reuse and recycling, including donations to Habitat for Humanity and salvaged lumber reused in a North Vancouver ice cream shop (Metro Vancouver C&D Waste Reduction Toolkit).

How BC Municipalities Are Encouraging Deconstruction

Several British Columbia municipalities have introduced regulations intended to make material recovery a more routine part of building removal. Municipalities, including Burnaby, Surrey, North Vancouver, Vancouver and Port Moody, have adopted variations of waste management plans, diversion requirements, deposits, and material salvage targets. Victoria’s Demolition Waste and Deconstruction Bylaw applies to single-family homes and duplexes constructed before 1960. Property owners seeking demolition permits must pay a refundable $19,500 fee. The full amount can be recovered by demonstrating that at least 40 kilograms of wood per square metre of above-ground floor area has been salvaged for reuse.

What is Kamloops currently doing?

Kamloops has already taken steps to reduce construction and demolition waste, although its existing approach relies more on disposal fees than on mandatory building deconstruction. The City charges higher disposal fees for demolition, land clearing, and construction waste than for ordinary garbage. According to the City’s waste management information, the higher rates are intended to encourage recycling, conserve landfill space, and ensure that the costs of managing these materials are borne by those who generate them (City of Kamloops Solid waste, Recycling and Organics Bylaw No.40-67). 

Kamloops’ 2021 Community Climate Action Plan identifies zero waste and the circular economy as one of its major climate priorities. It calls for a waste reduction strategy with measurable targets for individual waste streams, including construction and demolition, as well as support for repair, upcycling, and resource-recovery businesses. However, the City’s March 24, 2026, implementation report indicated that a formal waste reduction strategy had not yet been initiated. The City continues to support local waste reduction initiatives and collaborate with regional partners. This presents an opportunity to consider whether demolition waste could receive greater attention as Kamloops implements its growth and climate objectives.

The TNRD has also developed a Construction, Renovation, and Demolition Toolkit to help contractors and property owners identify opportunities for recycling, material recovery, and waste reduction.

One of the toolkit’s tools is a demolition waste and rates calculator, which can illustrate the potential financial benefits of separating materials before disposal. For example, a demolition scenario for a 100 m2 residential building estimates approximately 54 tonnes of material. The estimated cost falls from about $14,226 for unsorted disposal to $8,701 when materials are separated. 

This raises an important question: Could recovering materials reduce overall project costs while creating demand for local businesses specializing in salvage and recycling? Conventional demolition is generally faster and often requires less labour. Deconstruction involves additional planning, careful separation of materials, and skilled workers. Recovering materials also requires storage space, transportation, and suitable markets (Balogun et al., 2023). For developers working under financial and construction deadlines, these factors matter. But the economic calculation changes when reclaimed materials are treated as assets rather than waste. High quality lumber, hardwood flooring, doors and other materials may have resale value. Recovering them can also reduce disposal fees and demand for new products. A circular construction economy could support new businesses involved in material assessment, salvage, resale, and manufacturing using reclaimed materials. Currently  the construction and demolition sector in the TNRD employs 9.6% of the workforce, there may also be opportunities to expand skilled employment through deconstruction and support social enterprises that use recovered materials for affordable building projects. 

Reimagining the value of our old buildings 

In a city where construction already makes an important contribution to employment, material recovery could help extend economic benefits. As Kamloops prepares for thousands of new homes, it faces a question “How can Kamloops accommodate development without continuing to increase its environmental footprint?”. Kamloops could explore measures such as pre-demolition material assessments, voluntary deconstruction pilot projects, incentives for salvaging reusable materials, and partnerships with local reuse and recycling businesses. Requirements could be introduced gradually, beginning with buildings most likely to contain valuable materials, while considering housing affordability, hazardous materials, and the capacity of the local recovery industry. Creating such a market requires coordination. Local government, contractors, recycling operators, material suppliers, designers, and residents all have roles to play. But beyond that, it also requires a shift in how we think about our buildings, not just as structures to be demolished but as resources of materials that still have value and stories that can continue. A window that once connected a child’s world to the outside might one day bring sunlight into the library of a seniors’ housing building.

References: 

• Stenberg, E., Hernandez Vargas, J., & Huuhka, S. (2022). ReCreate: Deconstruction and reuse instead of demolition and waste . ARQ, 112, 84-95. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0717-69962022000300084 
• Pristera, G., Tonini, D., Tornaghi, M.L., Caro, D., Sala, S.(2024). Taxonomy of design for deconstruction options to enable circular economy in buildings, Resources, Environment and Sustainability 15:100-153. 
• Coelho, J. De brito (2013), Conventional demolition versus deconstruction techniques in managing construction and demolition waste (CDW), Editor(s): F. Pacheco-Torgal, V.W.Y. Tam, J.A. Labrincha, Y. Ding, J. de Brito, In Handbook of Recycled Concrete and Demolition Waste, Woodhead Publishing, Pages 141-185. 
• Balogun, H., Alaka, H., Egwim, C.N.,  and Ajay. S. (2023) Systematic review of drivers influencing building deconstructability: Towards a construct-based conceptual framework, Waste Management & Research  41(3): 512-530 

Cover Photo:  unsplash