In an encouraging article from American Recycler,  we find massive efforts underway to recycle tons of building materials demolished by the quake.  Port Au Prince was full of buildings built “on the cheap” with little in the way of building codes, and many were damaged already by ealier quakes.  The good news is, several American companies are working to send mobile recycling equipment there to salvage a great percentage of the materials, which will then be used to rebuild the city with more hurricane and earthquake resistant structures. 

High percentages of asphalt and concrete can be crushed and reused, and in a place like Haiti, where importing of materials is expensive it makes economic sense as well as environmental sense. 

According to the report, in the U.S. sometimes disaster clean up crews are paid by the yard and so little effort is put into separating materials so that recyclables can be harvested to use again.  The economics of recycling C&D material vary depending on the nature of the project. The bigger the project, the better the economies of scale and Port Au Prince may prove to be huge. In the United States, recycled aggregate usually costs less per ton than virgin when buying recycled materials from another site.  In this case, where the city already owns the materials, the savings will be truly significant.

Read more at http://www.americanrecycler.com/0310/095haiti.shtml