A creative approach

When it comes to end markets, construction and demoliton (C&D) debris recyclers are creative engineers, and collaboration and innovation are key to success, according to panelists on Recycled Materials as a Resource: The Ever-Evolving Landscape of End Markets, a C&D World 2025 session.

Moderator David DeVito, vice president of operations for ReSource Waste Services, Albany, New York, joined speakers Andrew Paluszkiewicz, managing partner and director of operations for Eco Materials, Philadelphia; Jeff Butler, area manager for Canal Wood, Conway, South Carolina; and Dennis Wilson, vice president of environmental, social and governmental and general manager of circular economy solutions for Saint-Gobain North America, Malvern, Pennsylvania for the March 13 session.

In the Northeast, recyclers are challenged with diminishing landfill capacity, DeVito said, which has pushed recyclers to explore different creative approaches to end markets.

He shared how from its New Hampshire C&D recycling facility, ReSource Waste Services developed an end-market relationship with a Canadian company that turns A-grade wood into medium-density fiberboard (MDF) to be used in furniture.

Initially, ReSource was shipping out wood as biomass to create energy to power the Canadian company’s operations.

After seeing the quality of the biomass product, the partner company opted to introduce an MDF board product made with recycled wood from ReSource, and over time, has added more and more recycled product into the board.

Some creative troubleshooting has occurred along the way, DeVito said. For instance, in the winter, ReSource would send high-moisture content wood, and it would freeze together in big chunks.

“All of a sudden, it’s clogging up their systems and causing them problems,” he said. “So [we said], ‘OK, what can we do differently?’”

DeVito’s team explored ways to batch product on a steady basis, sending smaller loads more frequently rather than developing major stockpiles of material.

“Without these end markets, we don’t survive,” DeVito said. “We have to figure out how to make this work and just get creative again. It’s all communication.”

He added that ReSource is working on a process to use optical sorters to capture about 40 percent of what is now categorized as B-grade wood to separate it into A-grade wood.

“How can you be creative to make it so that people really want the materials, so that you don’t lose the end markets?” DeVito said.

End market success stories

Panelists shared additional success stories of using recycled C&D materials on a large scale basis. For instance, Saint-Gobain promotes glass recycling to generate cullet, which it uses to produce its Isover glass wool insulation.

The company also has pioneered uses for recycled shingles in asphalt. Launched through its building products subsidiary CertainTeed Roofing, Saint-Gobain’s RenuCore by CertainTeed is a manufacturing technology that allows C&D recyclers and hot mix asphalt producers to pelletize asphalt shingles at end of life to be reused in asphalt paving applications.

The RenuCore product promises to divert asphalt shingle material from landfills and increase the recycled content in hot-mix asphalt paving, all while maintaining equivalent performance.

End market opportunities

With the right advancements in tech-nology and processing as well as changing regulations, many materials that are underused today could be recycled more effectively, panelists said.

Butler said he thinks missed opportunities remain for recycling wood, especially in areas like the South, where landfill rates are cheap.

“So much wood is probably just wasted in the landfill rather than processed for somebody to consume,” Butler said. “There’s a big market for landscape material, mulch and that sort of stuff, but once you get outside of the normal demand of the wood markets, there’s no longer [a] push to separate it.”

If landfill rates go up, Butler said he foresees potential for an increased desire to get wood out of the landfill and growing demand for recycled wood.

Wilson added that he’d like to be able to get more vinyl, as well as glass and gypsum, out of the waste stream and recycled into new materials.

“These materials, they can be recycled and put back into products,” he said. “I think policy can certainly help in some of these situations.”

End market challenges

The group of recyclers cited the high cost of logistics, the hurdles of inspection and the risk of contamination as the biggest challenges in developing end markets.

“Contamination, especially the wrong kind of contamination for our processes, can be really kind of deadly,” Wilson said. “We get metal in glass that goes through a spinner at one of our plants, and those things explode. They can hurt people. We really rely on our partners to make sure that the spec is met.

“We’re also putting materials on buildings that are supposed to last 20-to-30-plus years. So, if that spec isn’t where it should be, there’s a good chance that product’s going to fail, and that’s a liability for us.”

Because those specifications are so important to the performance and safety conditions of roads, Saint-Gobain is trying to develop a process to make a material to spec that can go into roof shingles as well as the hot mix asphalt industry with its RenuCore product.

“The success of these things is all about how pure the material is, and understanding where there can be contamination and not, and working toward that together,” Wilson said.

The recyclers spoke about the need for regulatory support and education to drive widespread recycling initiatives, with Paluszkiewicz noting that he would like to see the path cleared for the acceptance of more materials.

“[It’s] having that regulatory agency be more open-minded to exploring how those old ways need to be broken in order to push this recycling further,” he said.

On the policy side, Wilson added, there’s a lot of opportunity for what he called carrots, for projects that are built with materials made with recycled content. In some areas, builders can obtain faster permitting if they use these materials and responsibly manage the materials that come out of the project.

“I don’t really feel like our policymakers are … well-educated on these things sometimes—or at the very least they are, and they need help in pushing those things,” Wilson said. “Our team is spending a lot of time right now going state by state, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, trying to change those minds.

“[These materials] should not be going into landfills. These are very valuable resources that can be used for things that we need every day in society.”

Certified success

DeVito said he considers third-party certifications, such as the services offered through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program and the Recycling Certification Institute (RCI), which uses independent evaluators to verify reported recovery rates, as ways to continue to push innovation in C&D recycling.

He is especially excited about LEED v5, released this year, which is the newest version of the organization’s green building rating system.

“Anybody can say that they’re recycling and they have a high percentage rate, but having the third party come in and verify what you do, that’s pretty much a game-changer,” DeVito said.

“The LEED certification does bring a lot of credibility, especially with the new changes, with … Version 5. I think that’s going to help all of us be more creative.”

The author is managing editor of Waste Today and can be reached at smann@gie.net.