When a building is demolished in Iceland almost all the waste accumulated is put in a landfill. 0.0000001% of it is re-used.

total waste from a 5000square meter building:

    CONCRETE + MINERALS                    15.500.000 KG
     WOOD                                                  700.000 KG
    GLASS                                                   70.000 KG
     PLASTIC                                                 65.000 KG
     MINERALS                                            460.000 KG

It can be re-used.

But not under our current economic system (capitalism)

=

REYKJAVÍK

In the year 2021 the city of Reykjavík held a competition for the design of an Eco-Village on the island Viðey.

=

VIÐEY

A group of people unified by a worker co-operative won the competition and began the building of a village in Viðey  exclusively from building waste. This project is a fictional story.


Their proposal fulfilled the greenwashing dreams of the contractors, real estate companies, investors etc that wanted to profit of the project like they did in urriðaholt a few years earlier. But when the tender process for the project was initiated, the same worker co-operative offered the lowest price for taking it on. Their freedom from profit maximisation made it possible to offer as low a price that the members of the co-operative accepted. Their ideology revolved around building the whole village from building waste, which they got paid for gathering. They started building the village but had completely changed their design to fit this ideology. It included a workshop to produce units from the waste. When city officials heard of this new plan they immediately took legal action to stop the project. But the public protested and placed their support behind it which forced the city to accept it. After the village was completed the co-operative continued to manufacture units to serve other projects in the capital region .