Building better, by the numbers.

Waste

The US throws away more construction than it does household trash — and plenty of it was never used.

1. 0110lbs

   of construction & demolition debris generated per American, every day — twice what each of us puts in the trash.

   U.S. EPA — C&D Debris: Material-Specific Data (2018); U.S. Census population

   How we calculated this: 600M short tons × 2,000 lb ÷ 327.2M people ÷ 365 days = 10.0 lb per person per day. The same arithmetic gives 4.9 lb/day for household + business trash — EPA's own published figure.

2. 022×

   as much construction & demolition debris as all U.S. household and business trash combined — 600M tons vs 292M.

   U.S. EPA — Sustainable Management of C&D Materials

3. 034

   Empire State Buildings' worth of debris generated by U.S. construction every day.

   Unbuilt estimate from U.S. EPA (2018) and the Empire State Building fact sheet

   How we calculated this: 600M short tons ÷ 365 days ÷ ~365,000 tons per building ≈ 4.5 per day.

4. 04Upto 30%

   of the material delivered to a building site ends up as waste, depending on the material.

   Aalborg University — study of 26 construction projects (2026)

5. 0585%

   of kitchen remodels rip out and replace the cabinets — which are built to last about 50 years.

   Houzz 2025 U.S. Kitchen Trends Study; NAHB Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components

6. 06~40%

   of all waste generated in the EU comes from construction & demolition — the EU's largest waste stream.

   European Commission Joint Research Centre (2024); Eurostat

Natural resources

Half of everything humanity digs out of the earth goes into buildings.

1. 01~50%

   of all raw material extracted worldwide is driven by buildings and construction — more than any other sector.

   UNEP / GlobalABC — Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2025–2026

2. 0242.4Btonnes

   of materials consumed by construction every year — nearly half of everything the global economy uses.

   Circle Economy — Circularity Gap Report 2019

3. 0327m

   high and 27 m wide, all the way around the equator — one year of the world's sand & gravel use (~50B tonnes).

   UNEP — Sand and Sustainability (2022)

4. 0426

   small islands in Indonesia's Riau Province dredged away by sea-sand mining, largely to build somewhere else.

   The Conversation

Climate

The built environment is the single biggest source of carbon — and much of it is locked in before anyone moves in.

1. 0142%

   of annual global CO₂ comes from the built environment — operating buildings plus the materials and construction behind them.

   Architecture 2030 — Why the Built Environment

2. 0215%

   of the world's CO₂ comes from making cement and steel — more than every plane and ship on Earth combined.

   IEA — Achieving Net Zero Heavy Industry Sectors in G7 Members (2022); IMO Fourth GHG Study

3. 03Half

   of new construction's carbon footprint between now and 2050 is released before anyone moves in.

   World Green Building Council — Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront (2019)

4. 044th

   If cement were a country, it would be the world's fourth-largest emitter.

   Rhodium Group — The Global Cement Challenge (2024)

5. 05~80%

   less embodied carbon in floors built from reused concrete than from new — up to 94% with reused steel.

   EPFL — Küpfer, Bertola & Fivet, Journal of Cleaner Production (2024)

Affordability

Housing has outrun incomes for decades, and materials are a big part of why.

1. 015years

   of income to buy a typical U.S. home today. In 1960 it took about 2.

   Harvard JCHS — State of the Nation's Housing 2025 (5.0×); U.S. Census, 1960 Census of Housing

   How we calculated this: 1960: median home value $11,900 ÷ median family income $5,620 = 2.1×. Today: JCHS price-to-income ratio 5.0 (2024).

2. 02$174K

   of building materials in the average new American home.

   NAHB Eye on Housing (April 2025)

3. 03~3×

   lumber prices in 13 months (April 2020 – May 2021). Steel more than doubled, and the goods that go into a new home rose 41%.

   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Producer Price Index, via FRED

4. 04+160%

   rise in homeowner housing costs since 1960, inflation-adjusted. Incomes rose 60%.

   NIBS 2024 Housing Report (Harvard JCHS data)

5. 0549%

   of U.S. renter households — 22.7M — spend 30% or more of their income on housing.

   Harvard JCHS — The State of the Nation's Housing 2026

Supply chain

The finishes people choose travel thousands of miles — and every shock lands on the project budget.

1. 013in 4

   ceramic tiles installed in the U.S. are imported — mostly from Spain, Italy and India.

   Tile Council of North America — 2025 U.S. Ceramic Tile Market Update

2. 02~85%

   of the granite used in the U.S. is imported.

   USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Dimension Stone

3. 03+$10,900

   in tariff costs per new U.S. home, by builders' 2025 estimate.

   NAHB — How Tariffs Impact Home Building

4. 0416,000+

   structures — including 11,600+ homes — destroyed in the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

   LA County Dept. of Economic Opportunity

5. 05$76–131B

   in property and capital losses from those fires — and the rebuild draws on the same strained supply chain.

   UCLA Anderson Forecast

The reuse gap

Americans resell homes, cars, clothes and phones as a matter of course. Building materials almost never get a second sale.

1. 01<0.5%

   of America's construction & demolition waste gets reused.

   Material Reuse LLC — EPA SBIR "ID-REUSE" study (2024)

2. 02$2B

   a year — the entire formal U.S. building-materials reuse economy.

   Material Reuse LLC — EPA SBIR "ID-REUSE" study (2024)

3. 030of 23

   San Francisco contractors studied sold their leftover materials.

   SF Dept. of the Environment — Surplus Building Products Study (2021)

4. 0486%

   of U.S. homes sold are pre-owned — the most fixed objects we own resell the most.

   National Association of Realtors existing-home sales; U.S. Census new residential sales

5. 052.3

   used vehicles sold in the U.S. for every new one.

   Cox Automotive

6. 06~10%

   of global apparel spending is already secondhand — and U.S. resale is growing nearly 4× faster than new clothing.

   ThredUp Resale Report 2026

7. 07Upto 70%

   less site waste when a building is deconstructed instead of demolished.

   U.S. EPA — Deconstruction success story

The opportunity

Close the reuse gap and building-materials resale becomes one of the largest secondhand markets in America.

1. 01$200B

   market if construction reached parity with the rest of the U.S. goods economy — an estimated 20% secondhand. That's 100× today's $2B.

   Unbuilt estimate

   How we calculated this: 20% secondhand share × ~$1 trillion U.S. building-materials spend = $200B. ÷ $2B current reuse economy = 100×. Both inputs are below.

2. 02~20%

   of U.S. spending on cars, electronics, clothing, furniture and other durable goods already goes to secondhand — about 1 in 5 dollars.

   Unbuilt estimate from BEA, Cox Automotive and OfferUp/GlobalData

   How we calculated this: Secondhand ≈ $729B: used-vehicle dealer sales ~$500B (Cox: 19.2M × ~$26K) + all other U.S. recommerce $228.6B (OfferUp/GlobalData 2025). New: BEA 2024 consumer spending on durable goods $2,181B + clothing & footwear $530B = $2,711B. Household-to-household sales aren't in BEA's figures, so share = 729 ÷ (2,711 + 729) = 21%, rounded down to 20%. Private-party car sales are excluded; including them gives ~25%.

3. 03~$1T

   a year of U.S. spending on building materials.

   Unbuilt estimate from BEA GDP-by-Industry

   How we calculated this: Purchased inputs (materials, energy and services) are 46% of U.S. construction gross output — about $1.18T. Materials are most of that; we round to $1T.

4. 0413%

   of global GDP — McKinsey calls construction the biggest industry in the world.

   McKinsey — The next normal in construction (2020)

Unbuilt today

Cumulative results through October 2026, scored by the same engine that runs on every live listing. See how we count.