To reduce a building's environmental impact, reduce the amount
of energy it uses. But significant impacts also occur in the
production and disposal of building materials. I remember the
moment I started thinking seriously about the solid-waste
practices of Snug Planet, my home performance company. I was
tidying up our workshop at the end of the week and noticed a
piece of polyisocyanurate board in the trash bin. It was
L-shaped, about 2 feet on a side, big enough to block a couple
of joist bays or a crawlspace vent. I realized that if that
piece of foam went to the dump, I would have paid for it several
times: the initial purchase price, the crew time spent loading
and unloading it, and finally the tipping fee at the dump. And
yet it wouldn’t have generated any revenue. Just as bad, that
piece of foam took energy and raw materials to produce, yet it
didn’t save any energy. I took the board out of the trash bin
and put it on the rack with the whole sheets. As home
performance contractors, we know that the most