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Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Bricks

Building With A Clear Eco-Conscience

ecobricks™ founder, Toby Sail, has always been green. Since 1991, well before recycling was commonplace and climate change the hottest topic of the day, Toby has been sourcing bricks from demolition sites, cleaning them and then reselling them.

Toby's reason for recycling bricks was simple – building and landscaping with a clear eco-conscience.

"Bricks are one of the few building materials that can be recycled and reused with minimal processing and energy consumption and look as good - if not better - than new ones," he says.

"Many people don’t know that using recycled bricks to build an average sized 25 square home compared with building with new bricks saves 7.2 tonnes of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (equal to 144,000 50 gram black balloons)."

"An average family home uses 12,000 bricks. If you build a new home using new bricks, 9.6 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions would be produced during their manufacture. Using recycled bricks emits just 2.4 tonnes - a saving of 75%.

"By using recycled bricks, not only will you get the distinctive aesthetics and character of recycled bricks, you can be happy in the knowledge you’ve lessened your eco footprint during the building process."

Recycled bricks are also generally up to 20% cheaper than new bricks, Toby says.

Since Toby first began hand-cleaning and selling recycled bricks in 1991, over 20 million bricks have been recycled and reused in construction projects such as new homes, renovations, extensions, commercial property and landscaping.

Today, ecobricks™ diverts more than 2.5 million bricks a year (48,000 bricks per week) from landfill. This could build four houses a week.
Of these 2.5 million bricks diverted each year, around 40% are suitable for use as external feature or 'face' bricks, with around 60% used for landscaping and paving. Any brick that’s not suitable for either is made into rubble or given away as sub road base.

Toby and his business partner and wife, Marina Ward, are also busily looking for resellers in regional areas of Victoria.

"We want to be able to provide our brick cleaning equipment regionally so that the bricks from buildings being demolished can be recycled and reused in the local area. This way, locals in regional areas can use recycled bricks without having to send them to us in Melbourne for cleaning and then transporting back to them. We save on transport emissions and costs," Toby says.

Recently, Won Wron prison in Yarram was demolished and its (number) bricks recycled. The bricks have been used in many new construction projects.).

ecobricks™ also has big plans for the future - aiming to double the number of bricks diverted from landfill to 5.5 million. "If we can salvage 5.5 million bricks, it will equate to enough bricks to build 247 houses a year or 4.75 houses a week," Toby says.

Rethink recycled bricks

ecobricks™ is working with the brick industry’s peak body Think Bricks to help spread the eco-message about bricks.

"There’s an ongoing benefit to the owner of a brick home - and that is that bricks can provide thermal mass which reduces the need for artificial heating and cooling. Given that the majority of a home’s greenhouse gas emissions are caused by electricity, this means lower costs and greenhouse emissions in the long run."

Builders, Glenneagles Homes, Waltara Homes and B&G Cole, are among ecobricks™ major clients using recycled bricks for authentic period homes and as a base for rendered homes.

Glenn Eagles, a former President of the HIA and owner of premium building company Glenneagles Homes, has been building homes using recycled bricks for over six years.

"We can build a brand new home in a period style and it will look like it’s been standing there for years and years. Because the recycled bricks have already weathered for up to 100 years, the brand new home looks like it’s from the period its design is based on."

With 6.2 million bricks in stock across sites at Clayton and Sunshine, builders, architects, landscapers and DIYers will always find a brick to suit, Toby says.

"Customers come to us for three core projects - building new homes, finding bricks to match an existing home for a renovation or extension or landscaping."

ecobricks™’ range of recycled bricks suitable for facework includes Rustic Reds, Coachhouse Greys, Clinkers, handmade bricks dating back from the late 1800s and the rare Hawthorn Black and Browns.

Toby is quick to point out that modern homes can also be built using recycled bricks - either for face work or rendered finishes.
Builder, Glenn Eagles, uses recycled ‘builders bricks’ for rendering and hidden structural walls.

"They are much cheaper than the distinctive 'face' bricks and provide a far superior base to concrete bricks for rendering because they have little or no expansion and contraction leaving a beautiful, crack-free finish."

Commercial property developers are also wise to recycled bricks and ecobricks™ has recently supplied bricks for major commercial construction and refurbishment projects including the Tribeca Apartments in East Melbourne, Commonwealth Village in Parkville, Melbourne University campus and Deakin University in Burwood.

Building with recycled bricks compared with building with new bricks:

- Uses 86% less energy

- Produces 99% less SO²

- Produces 43% less CO²

- Produces 98% less NO²

Marina Ward
www.ecobricks.com.au

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