The Lismore App reported on the NSWRA’s (Reconstruction Authority) plans to recycle and reuse building materials from purchased homes through the Resilient Homes Program. Source: The Lismore App
It was announced that a timber recycling trial is taking place in two locations in Lismore, led by Associate Professor at the UTS School of Design Berto Pandolfo, to identify any timber that has the potential to be reused.
The Lismore App wanted to find out who Associate Professor (A/Prof) Berto Pandolfo is and what sort of expectations he has for this project and beyond as the removal of buyback houses continues. The latest statistics show that 575 houses have been approved for buyback in the Lismore LGA.
“I’m an industrial designer, so I design products,” Mr Pandolfo said, “Over recent years, I’m an academic. My area of research has evolved into recovering materials for recycling, so finding ways not to let materials get lost either through landfill or incineration.
“A lot of my work has been with petrochemical-based plastics. We’re running a project in the hospital system right now trying to implement a circular system of material recovery around non-woven polypropylene in the hope that we can collect homogeneous material, process it, and make it into products that go back into the hospital. The hospital has significant waste issues, massive waste issues with massive cost, and so this has huge implications for both the function of the hospital, and also, the environment.
“This is project is sort of similar. It particularly struck a chord with me because my history is with timber. My grandfather was a cabinet maker. I’ve worked with timber all my life, so I know the sensibility woodies have. I’m no longer a full-time woody, but I’ve always been a woody with timber, and I’ve collected timber off buildings that have been pulled out.
“So, when I was asked to think about what I would like to do in a post-recovery situation, I proposed a number of projects around material recovery, like white goods, for example, I know that in the post-recovery period, lots of stuff was just bulldozed into piles, put on trucks and buried. And that’s fine. There’s a time sensitive moment, and also because there are no systems in place to recover any of that material.
“When the opportunity came for me to think about what I’d like to do, and I knew older houses would be made from timber that is hard to get a hold of, I thought, why don’t we try and focus on just that? So again, that homogeneous material focus. Just the timber for now. Let’s try and recover it.
“I’m viewing this as a pilot study where we can establish some systems that we can then look at not just timber when we pull down the building, but also the sheet iron, the tiles, the PVC piping, any metals, you know, all of the materials.
“Though, my project is only with timber. I should add, however, that the company contracted to assist in the deconstruction is addressing all of the other materials because we understand they already have some systems in place to recover some of the other materials.”
Mr Pandolfo is based in Sydney at UTS and has been to Lismore three or four times and visited half a dozen homes listed for demolition. His observations have been extremely positive.
“The timber was in fantastic condition. Something that I learnt being up there is that the floodplain, being quite damp, the threat of termite damage is far reduced. It’s up in the dry, hilly areas where the termites run amok. So, these buildings are just in fantastic condition, in terms of the timbers that I could see. So, the piers, the joists, the bearers, the noggins, roofing, it was just amazing,” he said.
“We want to take the timber off. We want to deconstruct the building with great care. We’re testing a process by which the first step is an evaluation of the site where hazardous materials are identified and then removed. We need a clearance certificate before we can go any further.
“Once the clearance certificate is given, in this pilot study, we are removing all non solid timber material, so tiles, plywood, iron sheeting, plumbing, wiring, that sort of thing. We are then left with the solid timber, after which we will then go in and carefully deconstruct that dwelling to recover as much as possible.”
The old homes built from rainforest timbers were clad in weatherboard and painted with lead paint. What happens to the weatherboard?
“So, the weatherboards that have been painted are, in every likelihood, painted with lead-based paints, will be removed, will be stacked and collected as is done in many other locations. Then, it will be made very clear to the person who wishes to purchase the timber that the material that’s been painted and potentially hazardous.
“Because it’s timber, we’re collecting it, and because it has significant value in a restoration context because a lot of the profiles are difficult to find, we’re holding on to it. Our focus will be on the will be on the non-painted solid timbers, like the structural elements of the dwelling.”
Once the timber is carefully dismantled, it is stored in a recently identified yet secretive place.
“This is a trial to evaluate the system that we are proposing. After which, we will be able to quantify from the building how much material there actually is and then estimate…..well, if suddenly up to 400 homes that have been identified, 50 come online, then we’ll know what we need to do regarding, deconstructing, transporting to a safe site, storage in a safe location and so on and so forth. But at the moment, it’s all hypotheticals, and this is a small trial.”
The process, so far, has been smooth, although behind schedule, with Mr Pandolfo able to view the bare structure and identify those valuable, heritage timbers.
“We had an expert go in and identify the different types of timbers. We’ve got a list, there was spotted blackbutt, ironbark, tallowood, teak floorboards, rosewood, bloodwood and some unknowns. So, there’s a wonderful variety of timbers there, which is super exciting,” Mr Pandolfo said.
“It’s sort of old-growth timber. It hasn’t been plantation grown. So, the plantation grown timber is grown faster and has different qualities. Whereas this is being farmed in sort of native natural forests, and it’s just a better-quality timber. These timbers have really high value. People who work with timber really seek this material out.”
When asked where he thought these timbers would end up, Mr Pandolfo surmised that cabinetmakers and furniture builders would be likely options.
The next step for this trial is to hold a workshop.
“We have invited local artisans, cabinet makers, furniture makers, builders, architects, landscape architects, and educators from high schools and TAFE to come along. We’re going to invite these local creators to come up with ideas of what to do with this material because we know this is culturally important material from the local area. We want local creators to be the ones to transform and give a second life to this material,” Mr Pandolfo said.
“In this pilot, we are focused on three different scales. A sort of small, medium and large scale. Small being really small artefacts, a wall hook, a spoon. Medium artefacts will be a stool or a bench table, and a large artefact will be a shade structure or a screen.
“There’s different types of timber both in the species, but also in the cross-section, and in the length. There are lots of small bits that we need to find, solutions and ideas to use those small pieces. And there’s big, long bits that are a little easier to find.”
Each bit of timber will be identified and marked as a way to log the history and location of the wood.
“We want to mark each timber from each building so that a sort of legacy of its origin can be maintained, and so that the artisan that gets the timber with the red markings or the blue markings will know where that timber has come from,” Mr Pandolfo said.
“That will be recognised in any sort of supporting literature around those products, or branding that we might implement, a bit like a label on products. You know, the origin of this product is Tweed Street.”
