Building Deconstruction in Dhaka

Posted by Matthew McEwen

Since Bangladesh is basically a swamp that's below sea level they do not a lot of natural rock or heavy elements. Any time a building is torn down the material is completely recycled ... but first it has to be torn down. This is done completely by hand by a group of workers with sledgehammers. Then the rubble is carried in baskets and used to make new bricks, roads, smaller houses, birdbaths, or whatever they need. The problem with this is that it takes for-ev-er and it's extremely noisy ... clink, clink, clink. This is a photo of what used to be a 2-story house across the street ... now it's some stairs. What's even scarier is the fact that they are probably going to build something there soon, which is bad. It could take years, it's noisier, and they sometimes work at night!

Even in our apartment everything is recycled. All paper, glass, electronics, metals, wires, and containers go to some other use. We even have a composing and a small herb-vegetable garden on the roof. We should import some of their recyclers ... our trash in the US would be like gold.