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in the TrenchesConstruction & Demolition Waste - Recycling
in the TrenchesBy Jacqueline
Herships In today’s world of shrinking throwaway options, a
reuse, recycle approach is rapidly becoming practical, and construction professionals
are being forced to focus on this idea by a combination of growing popular support
for GREEN plus dollars and cents considerations-whether they are environmentally
minded or not. According to Frank Coolick, Administrator of Department of
Environmental Protection’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Program - http://www.nj.gov/dep/dshw/
there were over 400 landfill sites in N.J. in the 1970s many of which accepted
construction and demolition waste. Today there are 13 and one is scheduled to
close at some point in the foreseeable future. The pressure is on, says
Mr. Buono, who is also a founding member of US Green Building Council’s N.J.
Chapter (USGBC-NJ). It’s very important now to get people thinking about
sustainability and recycling. Mr. Buono entered this once unlikely marriage between
his chosen profession of construction waste management (CWM) and environmentalism,
as a result of this point of view. Not one to pull punches he spoke of ‘garbage’
a number of times during our discussion, and said he sees garbage as a key bridge
connecting people to GREEN. “People relate to garbage much more than they
do to geothermal or sunlighting,” he said. When they hear about recycling
garbage they say – “Oh yeah – saving the planet”. It
is because of people like Mr. Buono that the times are a-changing. To those invested
in building awareness of the new GREEN order, garbage has become our teacher –
first, because it is everywhere and second, because it isn’t going anywhere
unless we rethink our practices and policies. The ascendancy of USGBC’s
LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - rating system is an indicator
that environmental concerns are being taken seriously. Language on the national
USGBC website illustrates how overarching this system is, stating that “LEED
gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and
measurable impact on their buildings’ performance… promoting a whole-building
approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human
and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy
efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.” Yet because
LEED standards are still relatively new to the world of construction and demolition
– the USGBC itself was only founded in the 1993 - working towards even one
LEED certification is regarded as a major undertaking by many, and is not entered
into lightly. Achieving a LEED certification is regarded as a cause for pride. It
is therefore noteworthy that Mr. Buono, who has been hammering away at recycling
C&D waste for over twenty years, has created construction waste management
programs for 32 LEED projects, including the ground breaking Willow School, in
Gladstone, N.J. the first LEED Gold Certified Building in the state (2002) - which
recycled over 90% of its waste at a significant net cost savings for the project. Simply
put, Mr. Buono goes in as a consultant, conducts a waste audit and identifies
the percentage which can be removed from the dumpster. He anticipates saving the
cost of paying for those disposal services completely. Yet, broaching a waste
management program can still be a tough sell. To succeed in his mission he has
to bring in the idea of recycling without alienating his clients. While most people
are theoretically in favor of a healthy environment, in most cases, he said, dollars
and cents are still the bottom line. His job is to get them to see that recycling
can be conducted at least at the same cost as not recycling, and more likely at
an unanticipated profit which can be used for GREEN materials and systems later
on. He wants to get his clients to see that being GREEN is not simply amorphously
‘good,’ it is good business and very good PR. This is why planning
is of the essence, Mr. Buono says. But when a company throws its hat into the
LEED arena, there is a much bigger picture to consider. LEED provides a roadmap
for measuring and documenting success for every building type and every phase
of a building’s lifecycle by attaching points to carefully articulated specifics
within a number of categories including: - New Commercial Construction
and Major Renovation projects
- Existing Building Operations and Maintenance
- Commercial
Interiors projects
- Core and Shell Development projects
- Homes
- Neighborhood
Development
- Guidelines for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects
- LEED
for Schools
- LEED for Retail
Each one has C&D components
according to Robert Kobet, AIA, President of Sustainaissance International and
a lecturer on the topic of LEED accreditation and the credits or points required
to fulfill LEED requirements - rkobet@yahoo.com. In the CWM arena LEED rewards
you differently for those things which are kept out of the landfill and those
things which are kept out of the landfill and then reused in other building projects,
he said. Attention is paid to the quantities involved, and innovation is rewarded.
For example, projects are rewarded for increasing demand for building materials
and products that are extracted and manufactured nearby, thereby reducing the
environmental impact of transportation. They are also rewarded for using rapidly
renewable building materials and products made from plants that are typically
harvested within a ten year cycle or shorter, reducing the use and depletion of
finite raw materials and long-cycle renewable materials. If you do an exemplary
job, he said, you can score additional materials reuse points (MR). According
to Mr. Coolick, we generate 6 million tons of C&D a year – much of it
concrete. Thanks to Mike Buono and companies like his, over 80% of that gets ground
up to be reused for purposes such as fill for foundations or road bedding, for
example. “One container of concrete – the heaviest of materials –
weighs 10-12 tons. You can have that container recycled for $350. Or you can throw
it out at $65 a ton which is about double the cost. For years they’ve picked
up all the waste and taken it to a landfill,” he said, “even though
it is possible to recycle at half the cost of throwing it away, in part because
there are no landfill fees.” In short - there is money to be made,
says Mr. Buono. There are an awful lot of things that come out of the buildings
that are recylcable – glass, steel, masonry, brick, stone – so many
dollars per pound of stuff. Often, even GREEN oriented construction projects don’t
realize that they can be sustainable right from the start, before their buildings
are built. And so he continues preaching the cost benefits of putting a waste
management plan in place right from the beginning, whether in construction or
deconstruction, rather than just throwing the stuff away. The challenge is to
figure out how we are going to achieve the level of recycling we need, he said.
“Sustainability is important. It’s important to do sustainability even
before you build.” For more information on LEED certifications visit
the USGBC.org website. About the AuthorJacqueline Herships
is a publicist and communications strategist working to build public understanding
of Sustainability, Green Building, Smart Growth, Community Redevelopment and the
Environment. Her column "Spotlight on Green Builders" appears in the
US Green Building Council (USGBC-NJ) newsletter. For further information: jacqueline@jacquelineherships.com http://jacquelineherships.com Article
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