Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Jul 13/98) - Alain Carriere does things a little differently.

When the owner of True North Properties Group gets a contract to remove a building from a site, he doesn't just demolish the structure and pitch the remnants into the landfill.

No sir. After analysing the project and ensuring that it is economically feasible, the longtime Northerner dismantles the building piece by piece, prolonging the life of the materials while stretching the landfill.

"We're deconstructing the building, which means we are trying to reuse some of the materials, recycle some of the other materials and dispose of those which we cannot recycle or reuse," says Carriere, who is currently pulling apart a building in Iqaluit's downtown core.

While the method can take up to three times longer, Carriere says his extended labor costs are counter-balanced by revenues from sales of the salvaged materials and by saving him from ordering future supplies.

"A bag of insulation costs about $13 or $14 in Montreal but the same bag of insulation up here is $60 to $70," says Carriere, referring to the 2,000 square feet of insulation he retrieved from the project.

He is careful to note however, that he does not use or sell the materials for the primary construction of new projects.

"You couldn't go out and build a house with old materials however. We can sell these materials at a reasonable cost if you want to integrate them into your construction. We don't salvage any materials that are not reusable in the proper way."

Carriere says that by deconstructing the building instead of just demolishing it, he is able to find potentially hazardous materials.

"We had sheets of asbestos and you cannot throw that into the garbage. If the building is just dragged out of an area and moved to the disposal site, you won't see these things because they are hidden. By using the deconstructing method, you can see all the potential hazards and address them accordingly."

Carriere says he'd like to see more Northern contractors follow in his footsteps and he plans to keep his projects carefully documented so he can prove the benefits of deconstruction.

"We have a very extensive report of the one we did last year in Cape Dorset and if these thing keep on getting documented and go to the right people and we put an emphasis on the fact that we have tried to preserve the environment, a lot of things can be put in place in the future."