The demolition of two heritage buildings in Prince Edward County continues to cause a stir.
Environmentally, the company responsible for the demolition says they’ve been getting some blowback over what many considered a waste of heritage. But they say the demolished building material will be recycled.
For some, it was a heartbreaking scene, watching a pair of heritage homes being torn down. Whether it was the Hyatt House or the MacDonald House, those hoping to save the pieces of county history lost out.
“It’s better for the environment and better for the climate if we re-use what we’ve got instead of tearing it down,” said Kae Elgie, the past president of Architectural Conservancy Ontario.
“Look at the greenhouse gas emissions from the bulldozer, all that stuff carting out to the dump and on top of that we lost really valuable materials that people could have re-used.
“Of course we would have preferred to see the buildings themselves re-used and we think they could have been,” Elgie added.
The company that did the demolition work is Environmentall Contracting Services out of Kingston.
“We’re very, very much dedicated to the environment — our name says it all” said Eric Dinelle, president and CEO of Environmentall.
He adds that some of the concrete and brick taken from the two houses will be repurposed.
“It’s repurposed into a material that can be used for driveways, basement excavations — it’s a compact material that can be re-sold to the public. So 100 per cent of the agra material is actually repurposed from both properties,” said Dinelle.
Environmentall has three locations around the area, each with a different function. More material from the demolished houses at Sandbanks Provincial Park included plenty of copper.
“One of the first steps in the demolition process, all the electrical cabling that gets put through a stripper and then all the water piping from the two buildings, in this case older houses, have a little bit more of the copper product in it,” said Dinelle.
“But (it’s) another product that gets repurposed and is not put into a landfill.”
Dinelle says the beams from the houses will be cut up for mantles, furniture and more in an attempt to keep everything out of the landfill.
For some, it’s history lost. For others, it’s cleaning up that history in a much greener way.