Nexii, a Vancouver-based concrete alternative start-up, recently unveiled one of its first demonstration projects, a panel-based construction system that produced a mere two buckets of waste when torn down. At the foundation of Nexii’s construction is a material called Nexiite, the company’s concrete alternative which produces roughly 35% lower carbon emissions than conventional concrete, Fast Company reports.
Nexii’s concrete panels are transported onsite by crane and bolted together for easily assembly, and almost every part of each building can be salvaged for reconstruction, meaning virtually no waste is left behind.
“Our buildings are designed for rapid assembly,” says Zosia Brown, Nexii’s vice president of sustainability, “and they’re equally able to rapidly disassemble.”
From the building itself, the waste fit inside those two buckets. It consisted of just the sealant used to create an airtight connection between the panels, small sections of weatherproofing, and “a couple of screws that we weren’t able to reuse,” says Brown. “The main waste that was generated was some typical bits and bobs of just having people on site for six days, like coffee cups, lunch waste, and that sort of thing.”
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