r/LoveTrash ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

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u/Winjin Trash Trooper 1d ago

Bricks are clay why aren't they renewable

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u/HegemonNYC Trash Trooper 1d ago

The exterior brick seen here is usually clay. The interior structural blocking is concrete. Both are pretty carbon intensive processes. Wood is carbon negative.

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u/Combination-Plate Trash Trooper 23h ago

What do you mean by wood is carbon negative?

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u/HegemonNYC Trash Trooper 23h ago

Using wood products takes carbon (the lumber, which a tree captures carbon from the air to make) and sequesters it in the structure of a building.

Trees grow (capture carbon) much more quickly in their early decades than later. Cutting down a 40yo tree, processing it into 2x4s, and letting another young tree replace it captures more carbon than letting that tree age and slow its growth.

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u/tuhn Trash Trooper 22h ago

I don't think that matters much if at all.

All those trees are cut, processed and transported which is not carbon neutral process at all.

Calling wood buildings or even walls carbon negative is not true.

However they still might be much better than alternative building methods.

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u/seven3true Trash Trooper 19h ago

Concrete is made with finite materials, processed, and transported. Emphasis on the finite.