Building on the Old : With incentives to developers, recycled materials are turning up in new houses.

When his career took an upswing as he neared the age of 90, comedian George Burns remarked, “I guess I’m so old I’m new. “ It also happens to be an apt description of what has been happening to many recycled products.

All those old bottles, cans and newspapers we’ve been separating and putting out on the curb for the past few years are turning up in the county as, believe it or not, brand-new houses.

Not every new house has every part made from recycled material. But every new house has some parts. And eventually some houses may have every part made of recycled material.

Today, across from the Simi Drive-In Theatre, six houses are on display--the first of a 40-unit development--which have fiberglass insulation that comes, partly, from old bottles.

Developers at TMI Corp. are not “experimenting” on prospective customers. According to Emmett Gagnon, their building superintendent, they are just going along with a recently passed California law that mandates that any fiberglass insulation sold in this state has to consist of 10% recycled glass. By the end of 1993, it’s got to be 20%.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Finns have been building houses with even higher recycled content--30%--using plastic. We’re only using recycled plastic products for decking, driveways and boat docks in the United States. But we’re catching up.

Other recycled-content materials like insulation, metal joists and drywall panels, which are covered over when a house is built, are being joined by decorator elements like tile, sinks, counter tops and floor coverings made from scrap. GTE is even marketing a beautiful ceramic tile made from recycled light bulbs.

Last year McDonald’s Corp. announced its readiness to spend $100 million on the building and remodeling of its far-flung restaurants, using materials of this sort. According to Shelby Yastrow, McDonald’s senior vice president and chief environmental officer, the corporation was deluged with calls from companies making everything from adhesives to wallboard. At their demonstration restaurant in Tempe, Ariz., the builder used everything available that had recycled content.

It seems that the sorting and separating that you and I have been practicing with such gusto during the past few years has produced a mound of raw materials. And while no one was looking, a legion of entrepreneurs have been turning this into salable building products at competitive prices, compatible with modern building codes. I can’t resist comparing them to the alchemists of old who sought to transmute base metals into gold--only this time it’s dollars. And--very important--this time it means doing a lot of good for the environment.

Business and government are collaborating to stimulate use of these products; otherwise we might just end up with another pile of detritus.

A good local example is a new City of Thousand Oaks statute. The process of getting a building permit will be easier for those builders whose plans indicate they will be using any number of products made from recycled metal, wood, plastic or glass.

We’re not talking hippie Lucite log-slice tabletops here. We’re talking upscale interior elements like bathroom and kitchen counters in Calabasas’ Braemar development, in the Sheraton in Santa Barbara, in banks and restaurants in Santa Monica, Northridge and San Diego, and even in the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

At the Upjohn corporate headquarters in Simi Valley, the entry area is done in decorative stoneware tiles that once were scrap. I mention this location--a medical business operation like the Mayo Clinic--to make clear that recycled stuff is as safe and clean as if it had been made from virgin raw material; it is, after all, subject to the same building code standards.

But making things with recycled materials takes only a fraction of the energy needed to manufacture from scratch.

The part of all this I like the most is that government is doing something positive for business. Not at the taxpayers’ expense, either.

Virgin lumber costs the timber industry $1 a tree, but the U.S. Treasury ought to be getting $5 or $10 per tree because that’s what it costs per tree to run our national forests and land-management operations. Our local, state and federal governments are leveling the playing field for companies who manufacture from recycled materials. Prices to builders have been lowered because of market forces.

A bevy of source books have appeared that can aid builders who want to use recycled materials. From this year on, it will be hard for any builder or housing customer to overlook one fact: What was once old and about to be thrown away has become new and desirable.

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Special note: Eco-job seekers made good use of certain phone numbers in our Labor Day column. Here’s another one. Together for Jobs and the Environment is an event in Carson this Sunday where you can sign up for paid jobs registering voters. Work locations are anywhere in Southern California, including Ventura County. Go to the Earth Service booth or call (310) 859-2214.

* FYI

* For a locally compiled 36-page directory of building supplies made from recycled materials, call Ventura County Solid Waste Management Department--David Goldstein, 648-9242, or Thousand Oaks recycling coordinator Grahame Watts, 497-8611. For a 100-page resource, call McDonald’s Corp.--McRecycle Program, (800) 220-3809. All these guides are free.

* The Recycled Construction Products Conference and Vendor Show will be held Oct. 22 in Los Angeles. Call (213) 237-1444.