This third and final component of the Materials & Resources section attempts to ensure that homes generate less waste than the industry norm.  Reducing construction waste is just like trying to reduce waste as we live in our home.  It has two components: planning ahead to minimize waste in the first place through purchasing the appropriate amount, and identifying ways to divert waste toward reusing or recycling.  The reason seems obvious: landfill space is diminishing, incineration produces pollutants, and waste of materials itself is just, well, wasteful.

This, the third piece of the credit that tackles material choices, awards points for choosing products that have been extracted, harvested, recovered or manufactured locally.   What is local?  For LEED purposes, it means within 500 miles of the project site — and that can be either driving distance or as the crow flies, whichever is shorter.  Obviously, materials that have to travel fewer miles to get to your house saves transportation fuel compared to say, bamboo, which usually comes from Asia.  Many people also care about locally produced products because they prefer to support their local economy.  I know of a couple in Texas that wanted everything in their home to be 100% made-in-America.  That proved to be pretty difficult for their designer, especially when it came to lighting fixtures.  Even if something is assembled in America, many times components of the product come from overseas.  And to earn 0.5 point, at least 90% of a given component (by weight or by volume) must meet the requirements for Environmentally Preferable Products.