It's astounding what builders, renovators and homeowners throw away!

Just take a trip to the nearest landfill and watch contractors' trucks and homeowners' trailers roll into the dump, loaded with what they think is "junk."

That junk is mainly valuable building materials. Experts say that residential construction waste makes up about 14 per cent of the total volume of wastes currently dumped in landfills.

Some of it is garbage and completely valueless -- but only a small portion. The rest has value to someone, somewhere, but it means a change in attitudes.

Those in the construction and renovation industries developed an attitude after the Second World War. That's when North American economies were booming, and houses were being built and rebuilt.

Time was of the essence, and it was more important to get a project completed on time than it was to worry about what happened to the rubble created.

Now that landfills are getting jammed and tipping fees are rising, and at a time when the building industry is sluggish, more though is being given to what was previously thrown away.

In past years, contractors and renovators allotted between 5 and 8 per cent of the total job cost to removing and disposing of construction waste. That percentage is growing steadily, as disposal costs rise.

In the meantime, high quality materials, excellent moldings, and antique tubs and sinks have been chucked out. Even stained glass windows and elegant lighting fixtures have landed in landfills.

Pieces of Canadian heritage are now moldering beneath garbage.

It's the smart renovator who will visit a job beforehand and note all the valuable, but old, items in an existing house. It's the even smarter homeowner who will list all these old but classy items and ask what they're worth.

But the end result should be that any materials that have value shouldn't go to landfill, but should be re-used. There are lots of renovation and remodelling projects that become affordable when materials are re-used.

The time is coming when, whether renovators, contractors or homeowners want it, legislation will be passed penalizing the dumping of construction waste in landfills.

Besides containing some very unique items, there are products in construction waste that can be reprocessed or recycled. All we have to do is find a use for damaged drywall, bits of masonry, snips of metal, and tons of packaging.

While contractors and renovators have a duty to keep their prices as low as possible, they also have responsibilities to society: dump as little waste as possible.

Recycling companies also have to do their bit. They can't offer phony incentives like charitable donation receipts -- or at least, they can't if they want to be considered reputable, responsible, and knowledgeable.

Construction waste recycling and reprocessing must be recognized as an industry in itself, not as a charity. Anything else defeats the purpose of making recycling economically attractive.

And if there isn't an incentive -- like profit -- in an industry, no one is going to go into it.

It's time the world woke up to the importance of recyclers.