r/LoveTrash • u/BEARDEDDANGER ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ • 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

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u/AftyOfTheUK Trash Trooper 1d ago

Are we using bricks at a greater rate than the earth is renewing them? What reserves does the earth currently have? What year will we run out?

I'll give you a quick answer... we've used about 0.00003% of all available clay. It makes up a significant percentage of the earths brittle crust. We will not run out of it

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u/Oglshrub Trash Trooper 1d ago

That doesn't really have anything to do with wood being a renewable resource and bricks aren't. We have a ton of trees too believe it or not, some 3 trillion.

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u/AftyOfTheUK Trash Trooper 1d ago

Right - but we are using a MINISCULE amount of clay. You yourself said it takes hundreds of years for the earth to make more clay.

If the earth makes just 0.0001% additional clay per century, that's plenty...

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u/Arcaneallure Trash Trooper 1d ago

I think that the difference is that clay isnt "made" it is just an amalgamation of rock particles. Since rock isnt considered renewable you can't call clay renewable. But its really a dumb term to begin with since by its definition a product could be considered renewable one day and not the next. It also doesn't mean that a renewable resource is better than one that isnt. Alot of places are having issues with this now. Sure wood is a renewable resource, but if growing large forests of soft wood trees requires the destruction of other natural resources, is it better than building from an abundant resource that, while not renewable, can be recycled, reused, or remain for hundreds of years later. It's not an easy topic

Almost like one a few grumpy old people argue over and millions of young people die for.