The ubiquitous presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their potential to have negative effects on human and aquatic health continue to be leading topics across the United States as more research is gathered to develop a broad body of scientific knowledge.

There are currently two or three major pathways of thought regarding the risk to human health and the environment. There are agencies that have adopted a highly conservative approach to new PFAS regulation and emphasize evidence of significant health impacts such as gastrointestinal system colitis, high cholesterol, abnormal fat metabolism, liver damage, high blood pressure and cancer. Other agencies have taken a wait-and-see approach as the body of knowledge grows, and still others have contested the science used to develop the proposed standards citing research that shows no links between cancer and PFAS.

Research into the subject continues at a fevered pace. While this is a nationwide issue, to give an idea of the efforts regionally underway in the coastal Southeast (including select federal efforts), here is a digest of actions and initiatives ongoing and upcoming in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

Federal: As of Feb. 20, the U.S. EPA is proposing regulatory determinations for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in drinking water. The EPA is seeking public comment on its proposed regulatory determinations for eight contaminants listed on the fourth Contaminant Candidate List. The agency is proposing to regulate two contaminants, PFOS and PFOA.

Florida: The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has derived provisional groundwater and soil cleanup levels and proposed surface water standards for PFAS due to its chemical composition that leads to an elevated environmental presence. This chemical composition also makes remediation difficult. This work is generated from scientific research by the University of Florida, and the FDEP is actively investigating historic use and impacts to drinking water sources.

Georgia: The state is actively investigating drinking water sources in the city of Summerville in relation to the Raccoon Creek Treatment Plant. This is in relation to elevated PFOA and PFOS levels.

South Carolina: The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) is focusing on oversight of possible contaminant sources such as Department of Defense (DOD) facilities. In January, the state conducted groundwater sampling of wells which serve communities near Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina. Additionally, development of a strategy for further evaluation of PFAS in drinking water is underway.

North Carolina: On Feb. 5, the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network published, “Assessing the effectiveness of point-of-use residential drinking water filters for perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).” There is ongoing advanced early monitoring with a statewide PFAS sampling and monitoring network of both air and drinking water. DEQ and DHHS are seeking involvement by the EPA on the health effects of these emerging contaminants. Incidentally, as of March 18, all testing and sample collection by the network has been halted until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virginia: On March 2, the Virginia legislature unanimously adopted a bill for Virginia to study the occurrence of PFOA, PFOS and PFAS in the state’s public drinking water and develop recommendations for specific maximum contaminant levels. This legislation is awaiting signature by the governor on or before April 11.

At this point, it is anyone’s guess what pathway states will commit to to fight PFAS; however, it is my hope that legislators and administrators will fairly weigh economic, health, environmental and social impacts and continue to think about actions that can be taken upstream, not just downstream. As solid waste managers, we will do our part to contain, manage and mitigate the PFAS issue to the best of our abilities—and we will work with our state and federal colleagues to do so. PFAS do not originate in the waste and recycling streams, but we need to address it by pushing for proper management both before and after the point of disposal. This must stay top of mind for legislators as well as the solid waste management industry as a whole.

Of the 268 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in 2017, 139 million tons was sent to landfill, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Luckily with this incoming volume, gone are the days of the town dump. Today’s landfills are using greener methods to safely cover waste; generate energy from the underground methane gases; and give a second life after closure in the form of nature preserves, golf courses and even amphitheaters.

The number of landfills in the U.S. has dropped from 7,600 in the early 1980s to less than 2,000 today due to stricter land use regulations and a swell in recycling. Those that remain, however, are increasing in size.

"That size of machine is crucial to us. At a landfill this large, you need to move material quickly,” –David Strayer, assistant ops manager, Lycoming County Landfill

Lycoming County Resource Management Services operates a 500-acre site in north central Pennsylvania that includes a landfill, material recovery facility and recycling center. The landfill comprises 100 acres of the property. When opened in 1978, the landfill averaged 16,689 tons of MSW annually. Today, it receives 1,100 tons daily of MSW, including food scraps, product packaging, clothing, bottles, newspapers and other common household items that consumers do not recycle.

After waste, the second chief component of landfills is commonly dirt and shale, both of which are in abundance at the Lycoming County Landfill. For this reason, the landfill’s operators use shale and crushed rock from the site to build and maintain roadways to dumping areas and pad and cover the landfill’s underground cells.

A landfill cell is a complex creature. Each cell at the Lycoming County Landfill is approximately 10-square acres. The bottom of these cells are lined with geotextile matting and three feet of protective stone. Next, several layers of clay are compacted over the rock, and then a plastic cell liner is spread over the open cell before any waste is added. To further prevent groundwater contamination, PVC piping is latticed across the cell to collect leachate and funnel it to nearby lagoons. When filled, rock, soil and clay are used to cap and close the cells, then they are reseeded and returned to undisturbed grassland.

“It’s nice to be able to supply our own stone,” David Strayer, assistant operations manager at the Lycoming County Landfill, says. “That is not a resource most landfills have available. We have a very hard vein of blue shale at our pit, and since we are in close proximity to [populated] areas, we cannot blast. Instead, we use an excavator with a hammer or single shank ripper to break it into slabs that we can run through our crusher and screen to the right size. We have a McCloskey C50 jaw crusher as well as a Screen Machine Spyder 516T and a Finlay 833 screen plant that allow us to produce stone from a powder—size 3/8-inch-minus up to 8- or 6-inch-minus rock for roads.”

A Volvo L350F wheel loader is the landfill’s flagship machine to shuttle shale from the pit to the two on-site crushers or load its fleet of five Volvo articulated haulers. The 10-yard-cubed face loader, which is the largest in the Volvo lineup, is powered by a 16-liter, 532 horsepower Volvo engine.

According to Strayer, the L350F is one of the most important pieces of equipment the team employs since it is large enough to handle the requirements the site’s operators demand of it.

“That size of machine is crucial to us,” Strayer says. “At a landfill this large, you need to move material quickly and this size of loader paired with the Volvo 40-ton haul trucks allow us to do that with less wear and tear on the equipment, less waiting time to load and, ultimately, less stress on your operator.”

The right equipment is critical for maintaining the scope of the landfill’s operations, which is why the team at Lycoming County thoroughly vets each new purchase before making the investment.

When Lycoming County Resource Management Services needs to supplement its fleet, it turns to its local Volvo dealer based out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Highway Equipment & Supply. Brian Hoffman, territory sales manager for Highway Equipment & Supply, has guided Lycoming County through multiple machine purchases using governmental buying contracts.

“We are obligated to follow certain buying regulations,” Jason Yorks, director at Lycoming County Resource Management Services, says. “If we go out to a straight bid, there’s a good chance that while we may save a few thousand dollars, in the long run, it is not cheaper if the equipment does not give you the value, service and life you expect. We are particular. We want a loader that will last a long time with good fuel efficiency. That is why we used the COSTARS cooperative purchasing program to buy the L350. Through COSTARS we can select from a list of equipment with pre-negotiated pricing through a state contracting system.”

COSTARS, while specific to Pennsylvania, is one of numerous state and federal buying contracts that are becoming an attractive alternate to the traditional bid process for government customers, Hoffman says.

Tom Schanz, state and provincial government sales manager for Volvo, says municipal customers should consider the benefits of state buying contracts because of the purchasing power they allow.

“COSTARS is the commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s state contract or ‘cooperative purchasing’ program. The Department of General Services administers the contract with the intention of providing a channel for procurement that can be swift while also making it simple to seek out approved vendors with vetted best pricing,” Schanz says. “There are state programs similar to COSTARS across the U.S. The state takes the lead in vetting vendors as well as their pricing so that entities throughout the state, which could be anything from municipalities to educational institutions, have the purchasing power of much larger entities.”

According to Kathy Tedone, governmental buying specialist for Volvo Construction Equipment, the company’s partners are increasingly relying on these contracts to get the most value from their purchases.

“Volvo is seeing a significant and consistent increase in the trend by our municipal partners to purchase from cooperative contracts,” Tedone says. “These contracts offer the flexibility to purchase equipment that meets their specific needs at the most competitive pricing available while saving time and money.”

While cooperative contracts are one way for the Lycoming County Landfill to save money, the site’s operators work to conserve resources whenever possible. Lycoming County has an on-site gas-to-energy plant where methane gas is repurposed from the decomposing waste, an ample resource since food waste remains the largest type of unrecovered material sent to landfills. At the site, wells are sunk into the cells to siphon off gases to an on-site facility where the methane powers four generators that produce approximately 50 million kilowatt-hours per year, preventing the equivalent of 34,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

The Lycoming landfill has sufficient capacity to accept waste through at least 2030, and according to the site’s operators, it is working to ensure that its operations are as efficient and self-sustaining as possible in its remaining years. While the industry has come a long way since the days of the town dump, Yorks notes that preserving and maximizing landfill space will always be a priority.

“People are changing their habits; you no longer see burning barrels in backyards,” says Yorks. “Still, over 70 percent of the total volume of material we receive is MSW. While every facility across the Pennsylvania, and the United States, is seeing a drop in total waste produced, the reality is there will always be a need for a landfill.”

This article was provided courtesy of Volvo Construction Equipment.

The first case of the COVID-19 virus in the U.S. was diagnosed on Jan. 20. By March 26, the United States became the epicenter of the pandemic as domestic cases surpassed those in China and Italy for the first time. In the process, the steady uptick of domestic infections set in motion the nationwide closure of countless businesses and schools, cancelation of travel, and shelter in place orders.

As life has abruptly been put on hold for many Americans, waste and environmental services professionals have been called on to help deal with shifting solid waste collection demands, suddenly unpredictable volumes and the emergency need for decontamination services.

Managing medical and pharmaceutical waste

Selin Hoboy, vice president of government affairs and compliance at Bannockburn, Illinois-based Stericycle, says that the virus has altered the makeup of its incoming medical waste stream. Although the company is seeing some higher volumes from hospitals combating the disease, the delay in elective procedures and enforcement of stay-and-home ordinances has helped balance out the overall demand.

“We’re seeing some increase in medical waste produced due to heightened use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in diagnosing and treating COVID-19 patients, and some non-traditional waste is also sometimes being managed as regulated medical waste,” Hoboy says. “However, increases in waste from COVID-19 may be offset by continued declines of elective surgeries or temporary closures of smaller healthcare practices. The impact of the pandemic is changing day to day and hour to hour, and we are closely monitoring the situation with federal, state and local agencies to determine next steps.”

Hoboy says that medical waste from COVID-19 patients and workers is managed as Category B waste. This means that once it is discarded, it is to be treated as normal regulated medical waste that is subject to the same treatment and disposal guidelines as most other potentially infectious medical waste.

"We’re seeing some increase in medical waste produced due to heightened use of personal protective equipment in diagnosing and treating COVID-19 patients, and some non-traditional waste is also sometimes being managed as regulated medical waste,” –Selin Hoboy, vp of government affairs and compliance, Stericycle

Although the waste is treated the same and rendered innocuous through standard medical waste treatment methods, Hoboy says that the company has changed its protocols for hospital waste collections to minimize the risk of workers coming into contact with patients who are potentially infected.

“We have updated protocols and procedures for in-hospital services. For example, Stericycle service technicians will not be entering any patient isolation rooms regardless of isolation room signage, and technicians will be checking in at nurses’ stations to ask about any rooms they should not be entering,” Hoboy says. “Additionally, our team members are authorized to deny pickup of non-conforming waste from our customers who are not following our waste acceptance protocols or packaging guidelines.”

Hoboy says because of the rapidly changing nature of the virus, forecasting labor requirements is challenging, but that the company is able to add additional shifts for its workers and expand capacity if necessary.

Bob Cappadona, president and COO of Boston-based Veolia North America, says that the demand for the company’s services relative to COVID-19 has varied depending on the client.

“The core of our work [relating to COVID-19] has been at organizations that are involved in research,” he says. “A very significant group of customers for us is the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector … and in some cases, we’re working at some of the key companies that are doing COVID-19 research. [And these customers] are looking for additional manpower support from us. They’re extremely busy with the research work that they’re doing in pursuit of therapies and cures. So, as we’ve reached out to our customers, they’ve wanted assurances that we’re going to be there for them, and we’ve signed a lot of emergency response-type agreements and support agreements for these companies.”

Conversely, due to the number of businesses being suddenly shut down across the country, Cappadona says some of Veolia’s smaller medical service clients have seen volumes decline.

“If you’re looking at the total spectrum of those who generate waste and ship it to us, half of them are very busy and half of them are closed. Many of the medical waste customers that ship into our facilities will be a family physician, a dentist or various types of clinics. And many of these facilities have closed or slowed considerably, so our level of activity with this group may be down. And then in some of the larger facilities, we may see slight volume increases, but at this point we haven’t seen anything dramatic,” Cappadona says.

© ashtproductions | stock.adobe.com

Decontamination nation

As evidenced by the increased demand for cleaning products and the shortage of available hand sanitizers at retailers from coast to coast, sanitation and decontamination are top of mind for many Americans. This is especially true for locations and businesses that have, or suspect to have, come into contact with those carrying the virus.

Currently, Cappadona says Veolia is providing industrial decontamination services mostly for its core clients, but is able to heed the call to serve a larger demographic through its nationwide emergency response group should the need arise.

US Ecology CEO Jeff Feeler says that his company has seen a 500 percent increase in demand for its decontamination services over the latter half of March due to COVID-19 concerns.

“We are currently providing decontamination services for a wide variety of public and private sector customers across the U.S., including retailers and pharmacies, cruise lines, airlines, schools, large industry, building services companies, government agencies and utilities,” Feeler says. “This service includes decontamination of sites that have had direct or potential exposure to the virus, or proactive preventative cleaning of high-traffic areas or frequently touched surfaces.”

Feeler says the Boise, Idaho-based company’s decontamination and preventative cleaning services include: wipe downs of horizontal surfaces and high-traffic/touchpoint areas; the use of portable fogger machines filled with decontamination solution for smaller areas; the use of a portable hydrogen peroxide disinfectant system for larger areas; and proper consolidation, transportation and disposal of all waste including used PPE.

While Feeler says the company’s estimated response times vary depending on several factors including volume of incoming calls, the company’s average response from receipt of initial calls to personnel arriving on-site has historically averaged from two to three hours. Even as demand increases along with the number of COVID-19 cases, Feeler says his team is prepared to meet the demand for its services.

“As the virus continues to spread and more businesses are facing the realities of long-term operational restrictions from local, state and federal regulators, they realize they must have a plan in place to safely resume day-to-day operations. … Our operations are staffed and equipped to handle multiple large-scale responses simultaneously. We have provided response services for nearly every major natural disaster and viral outbreak over the last two decades and are doing the same for COVID-19,” Feeler says.

Projecting more uncertainty

Waste management companies both big and small are working to adjust to shifting customer needs. If they haven’t experienced it already, many are anticipating the potential for significant shakeups in the form of increased residential waste volumes as more Americans are forced to stay in and work from home, a drop off in commercial and C&D volume amid massive businesses closures, and changes in medical waste volumes.

Stifel, St. Louis, released an industry update March 22 titled, “Solid Waste: Revising Models for C-19, Volume Down, Price Durable, Deal Flow Slows, FCF Stands Out.” In the update, the investment banking firm outlines the projected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on solid waste industry participants.

“What public/private company avoids any sales pressure due to COVID-19? None,” the report states. “We believe the impact on solid waste will look like both 9/11 and the Great Recession. The former was a shock-and-awe [event], the consumer paused. The latter, the U.S./North American economies were over-levered, which it is not now, but wholesale business shutdowns had a volume impact. Today, solid waste has more control of cost/capital than ever before. Social distancing and big urban settings forcing closure of food, beverage, hospitality and entertainment leads to a big drop in collected volume and commercial customers asking for service on-hold/cancellations. We assume an annual 15 percent hit to volume of 10 percent for third-party commercial, C&D and special waste volume and 5 percent direct commercial collection sales cut in half for two months. Residential volumes will be up, and in many cases, contracts allow for charging for extra bin/bag pickups.”

A Republic Services spokesperson corroborated Stifel’s projections on anticipated escalations in residential volumes, stating that the Phoenix-based company is preparing for residential waste volumes to increase and is suspending bulk and yard waste pickup in some communities to be better prepared to service customers.

Janette Micelli, director of external affairs at Waste Management, says the Houston-based company has tried to take a proactive approach to adapt to changes in commercial volume.

“Customer needs are changing by the day—we’re all working diligently to right-size customers based on current volumes and provide them with the solutions they need to run their businesses,” Micelli says. “We are helping [some of] our customers reduce service appropriately, but also rapidly increase service for grocery stores, residential buildings and healthcare facilities. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, so we are laser focused on meeting these evolving needs. … Our neighborhoods and businesses rely on us. Ultimately, our goal is to partner with our customers and do our part to provide some relief and help minimize the impact of the pandemic on their communities and businesses.”

Proper precautions

Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) not calling for any additional steps in handling MSW or recycling during the outbreak, some municipalities and haulers have altered their services in accordance with the spread of the virus.

There have been numerous reports of suspended curbside and drop-off recycling programs for both safety and demand reasons. Some MRFs have also temporarily halted operations due to safety concerns.

Micelli says that Waste Management has used the emergence of the virus as an opportunity to remind its workers of safety best practices.

“We instruct all employees handling any waste or recycling to follow our safety procedures, including wearing proper gloves and eye protection,” she says. “We’ve also created new procedures at our facilities to ensure social distancing and the elimination of group meetings. Employees not required to be on-site are working from home. As leaders in our highly regulated industry, we follow strict policies and procedures every day when managing solid waste, including medical waste, to protect our employees, our customers and the communities we serve.”

Similarly, Cappadona says that while little has changed in how its workers manage waste, the company has reemphasized its established safety protocols with staff to make sure workers are observing proper due diligence on the job.

“You assume that you need to protect yourself from [the virus]. So, that means not opening containers; ensuring that you’ve got appropriate PPE on whether that’s gloves, coveralls or respirators; and observing other general practices that we have in place. … We do an awful lot of total waste management programs where we go to a customer and we manage their medical waste, hazardous waste, radioactive waste, etc., which means our employees need to have hazard awareness. And with hazard awareness comes universal precautions of just making sure that you’re doing what’s called a mental safety assessment, which is where two or three seconds before you do something, you assess what the potential risks are and ensure that you have all the protections in place to manage that risk.”

Giving back

As you often see in times of crisis, the rise of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. hasn’t just brought challenges, it’s helped shine a light on those doing good within their companies and communities.

Waste Management CEO Jim Fish told the Wall Street Journal on March 22 that it would continue to pay workers for a 40-hour week regardless of whether services were cut or suspended, Republic Services says it is working to support local restaurants and thank its employees by providing meals to workers and their families from local establishments, and several companies such as Veolia are donating surgical masks to hospital workers in need.

Waste management and environmental services professionals don’t often get rewarded or recognized for the essential services they provide, but helping life go on as normal as possible for the communities in which they operate is something that merits attention. And even though the future might be clouded in uncertainty, organizations are working to maintain the status quo by showing up and coming together.

“This is something I don’t think any of us ever could have imagined,” Cappadona says. “So, [at Veolia] we’re trying to ensure that we’re helping people through the process of understanding what’s occurring and also providing a service that helps our customers as we all manage through this crisis together.”

The author is the editor of Waste Today and can be contacted at aredling@gie.net.

Buildings are incredibly resource and material intensive, accounting for more than one-third of global resource consumption and 11 percent of global emissions stemming from their construction, renovation and demolition, not accounting for operations. Moreover, most of these building materials are lost to the landfill when buildings and interior spaces are renovated or demolished. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demolition activities alone accounted for more than 90 percent of the estimated 569 million tons of construction and demolition (C&D) waste generated in the U.S. in 2017. This was more than twice the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) that the EPA estimated was generated in the same year. And this type of waste generation has been growing, quickly, ever since the EPA first estimated C&D waste generation at 136 million tons in 1996.

Certainly, not all C&D waste is attributable to buildings: by weight, most is generated from roads, bridges and other infrastructure in the form of asphalt, concrete and other aggregates. The EPA calculates that buildings themselves are estimated to account for just 32 percent of C&D waste by weight, but this category is more problematic than others because of the types of materials it generates. Much of the road, bridge and other infrastructure-related waste is primarily comprised of asphalt (which boasts an impressive recycling rate of 99.7 percent) and concrete and other bulk aggregates, which have an 85 percent recycling rate. The materials in buildings and their interior spaces, however, often fall into the mixed C&D category, which achieves a significantly lower recycling rate of only 37.6 percent, according to the Construction and Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA). Mixed C&D recycling, therefore, is an industry sector that poses significant opportunity for growth.

With so many mixed building materials headed to the landfill, the U.S. does itself a disservice in allowing these valuable resources and their associated embodied carbon and energy to leak from the country’s resource and economic system.

“Mixed C&D recycling ... is an industry sector that poses significant opportunity for growth.” – Corinne Rico, project manager, GBB

So, why has the recycling rate of these materials remained so low in comparison to asphalt and concrete? The issues are multifaceted and span the value chain, including manufacturers, designers and architects, construction contractors, materials processors, and the public policy officials and waste managers in local and state governments. Building a better solution will require us to use systems thinking principles and shift our perspective from the linear to the circular.

C&D waste from a designer’s point of view

I spent the first part of my career in the architecture and design industry. I always did my best to deliver design solutions that met my clients’ needs while also being sustainable. But there were often many competing demands and numerous variables to consider, including functionality, aesthetics, materiality, availability, sustainability and cost. And apart from the select manufacturers that have developed internal recycling programs for the products they produce, designing for reusability and recyclability was not a readily discussed topic. From the architect’s perspective, commingling the C&D waste for collection and hauling off-site was the construction contractor’s responsibility. Sometimes, if the contractors were pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, the construction contractor would need to ensure that at least 50 percent, or sometimes 75 percent, of materials were diverted from waste. Where this material went after that, or how it was processed, was anyone’s guess.

By and large, the design community has not had to think about what happens to building materials after they leave a building site as waste. LEED, launched in 2000, has evolved over time and grown from one certification standard to a suite of certification options. LEED remains the most popular certification option in the U.S., but there are now other competing building standards including Green Globes, which advertises itself as a more flexible competitor to LEED, and the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), an international standard that evaluates the whole lifecycle of the built environment. But here’s the challenge: As far as building materials are concerned, these standards have historically focused primarily on the impact of the materials on indoor air quality and, to a lesser extent, the sustainable sourcing and manufacturing of materials. With few exceptions, less attention has been paid to products’ full lifecycle impacts, including end of life management.

© HildaWeges | stock.adobe.com

For example, prior to LEED version 4 (which was not fully phased in until late 2016), commercial construction projects could achieve a maximum of only two possible, non-mandatory points related to C&D waste: one point for achieving 50 percent waste diversion and the other for achieving 75 percent waste diversion. LEED version 4, now updated to LEED version 4.1, maintains these same essential waste diversion benchmarks and also gives more options to incentivize material reuse and products being taken back by the manufacturer via extended producer responsibility (EPR). It also made mandatory the development of a C&D waste management plan for these projects but requires few specifics within the plan beyond identifying five material streams to be targeted for diversion. There is still no incentive to achieve more than 75 percent waste diversion, and a given project does not necessarily need to achieve this level of diversion to attain LEED certification at any level based on the other points earned.

I do believe the LEED system has good intentions, however, it also has its weaknesses. LEED’s weaknesses have not gone unnoticed by others in the industry, particularly others who seek higher levels of sustainability standards and compliance. Since its release in 2006, the Living Building Challenge (LBC) has sought to achieve environmental restoration through the built environment by producing more energy than is consumed for given projects, treating water on-site and using healthy building materials. LBC’s version 4.0 standards for waste are rigorous. These standards seek to achieve “net positive waste,” both by diverting 80-100 percent of all waste and by reusing materials that would otherwise become waste. Its waste management plan, which is referred to as a “materials conservation management plan,” must address the entire project lifecycle from design through end of life. The other LBC requirements are no less rigorous, and consequently, its strength is also its weakness: Only 24 buildings in the world have achieved “Certified Living” status for meeting these benchmarks.

Two other certification programs deserve mention here: TRUE Zero Waste (an acronym for Total Resource Use and Efficiency) administered by Green Business Certification Inc., and Underwriters Laboratories’ (UL) Environmental Claim Validation Procedure 2799 for Zero Waste to Landfill. The TRUE program focuses on holistic organizational change to minimize waste and is ongoing over an organization’s life. The UL certification is used to demonstrate landfill diversion rates of 90 percent or higher, commonly from facility operations such as manufacturing, although it can also be used to certify time-limited events such as concerts and conventions or even construction, demolition and renovation projects. While these programs are unique in that they are exclusively focused on waste, the scope of these programs—TRUE encompassing the organization as a whole and UL focusing on operations only— makes them unlikely to become the program of choice for most architecture and design projects.

This leaves LEED as the industry’s de facto certification option. On top of LEED’s general lack of emphasis on C&D waste mitigation and management, the responsibility for achieving these goals is effectively placed on the construction contractor to procure a service provider and produce the correct documentation to meet the LEED standard requirements. What’s more, there is no consideration in LEED or its directly competing standards for designing for the ease of reuse or recyclability. Frankly, the design industry just isn’t thinking about what will happen at the end of material life. And if the design industry isn’t thinking about it, and isn’t asking manufacturers to create products that cater to these needs, the result is a vast disconnect between how and what we are putting into our buildings and the ability to reuse or recycle these items at the end of their initial lives.

Our role in the waste & recycling industry

Stakeholders in the waste and recycling industry, whether it be consultants, processors or public officials and program managers, have a duty to communicate how the C&D recycling process works. This is not limited to outreach to the design industry.

GBB is currently working with a client as its C&D materials recovery coordinator to help achieve a goal of zero C&D waste during renovation projects. At the start of one project, the need for these services was particularly evident during an early visit to a construction site. It became clear that the construction contractor wanted to help the client meet its goal, but was unaware of what was and was not recyclable, how the materials were processed and what the contracting team could do to ensure recyclability. It appeared as though the construction contractor was dependent on someone else later resolving the issue of recycling. In fact, in the years since LEED was introduced, the responsibility has indeed fallen on the C&D recycling service provider to document materials and diversion percentages on reports that are submitted to the contractor, who submits the reports to the design team, who then submits the documentation package to the certification body. At every level, there is a disconnect from the next. This is not a best management practice.

Logistics can also be challenging for construction contractors. A well-run C&D recycling facility with a relatively automated processing system may not have much trouble achieving 50 or even 75 percent waste diversion, depending on the incoming material stream. But achieving more diversion than 75 percent can be challenging, especially considering some of the specialized building materials that have been developed in the past few decades. Because of this, there is a growing demand for C&D facilities to update and expand processing capabilities to include materials that some may consider difficult to handle. If a C&D recycling facility is not equipped to handle such specialty materials, the contractor must devise a way to manage multiple material waste streams at the construction or demolition site, which may be space or cost prohibitive and require a higher level of training to all crew members.

© Hoda Bogdan | stock.adobe.com

Salvaging materials

We have a responsibility to communicate and collaborate across the value chain, as well as to challenge ourselves to keep improving and innovating. This includes, at the policy and public program management level, how we communicate about C&D waste. In direct opposition to how it is commonly referred to, C&D “waste” is actually a valuable resource that should be recovered and not placed in landfills. Rather than speak in terms of C&D waste management, which implies that we are burdensomely managing something of little to no value, we should speak in terms of C&D materials recovery, which better represents the reality that we must recover these valuable resources to the greatest extent possible. A similar difference exists between the words “demolition” and “deconstruction,” which are two fundamentally different activities. Demolition implies destruction such that the components of a building will be rendered unusable for any purpose and can only be recycled or landfilled. Deconstruction, on the other hand, involves dismantling a building with the goal of maximizing the salvageability and reuse of its components. This is a paradigm shift that starts simply with how we talk about the idea of waste. 

“We have a responsibility to communicate and collaborate across the value chain,” – Corinne Rico, project manager, GBB

To incentivize this paradigm shift through innovation and increased recycling, some jurisdictions have taken inspiration from the various sustainability certification programs and made C&D waste management plans and diversion minimums the standard requirement—not the option. This could be accomplished by making these requirements a building code minimum, a condition of permitting or a means for building owners and builders to avoid citations or fines, such as CALGreen’s green building standards code, which requires that all construction projects divert at least 65 percent of waste and either submit a waste management plan or use the services of a company that can provide verifiable diversion documentation. Some local jurisdictions have even higher diversion minimums. Policy could also be written to require proof of recycling in order to receive a conditionally refundable deposit, as is the case in the cities of San Jose and Santa Monica, California.

To meet a similar end, policy could revolve around certain C&D materials prohibited in landfills, such as metals, gypsum board, clean wood, concrete and stone, and the requirement that all C&D materials pass through a recycling facility prior to landfilling, as in King County, Washington. Other types of financial disincentives to wasting materials exist, such as through landfill taxes or fees. For example, North Carolina taxes both MSW and C&D landfills and taxes MSW and C&D transferred to states for out-of-state disposal. Landfill requirements for C&D materials are not as stringent as for MSW, often leading to lower construction and management costs, and therefore, lower tipping fees that do not necessary serve to incentivize the diversion of C&D waste.

Technology to move from recycling to upcycling

Recycling C&D materials at high rates today is possible, but the industry needs to ensure it is continuing to make strategic investments in its infrastructure. Similar to municipal MRFs, there is not one prototypical C&D recycling facility that can serve as a model for all others. All facilities are different and have differing considerations for future investment, but investment is key to keeping these facilities operating at maximum efficiency. C&D recycling facilities should be receptive to feedback from the customers and communities they serve to ensure they meet evolving needs. By weight, most of today’s mixed C&D materials can already be diverted from waste, either for recycling or beneficial reuse, at a well-equipped C&D recycling facility. There are many reasons why this may not occur, as discussed previously, but the industry should not let insufficient equipment be one of them.

As building information modeling (BIM) technology has continued to develop and mature over the past decade, the architectural and design industry can document exactly what materials go into a building as part of its construction plans, down to the manufacturer, material type, shape, size and color. This could be an additional tool used and required for building permit submission as we plan for the future of building de- and re-construction. This is the concept of buildings as material banks. Indeed, buildings are rich stores of materials, whose embodied energy, carbon and economic value should not be lost due to a lack of planning, communication and collaboration. Certainly, recycling is better than landfilling, but better yet is upcycling to create something of higher value.

One of the biggest barriers to building material reuse is the unknown (i.e., not knowing exactly what materials may be available, what its structural properties are, and its current condition). Ascertaining this information requires time and money, ultimately disincentivizing material reuse and conservation. Today’s technology helps remove this barrier. If we document today the components of a given building project, we can better understand how to salvage and reuse these components in the future. If we could reach a tipping point of having enough projects planned in this manner, we would have a critical mass for the creation of a materials exchange, where materials from buildings are aggregated for sale to the reuse market. Implementation of such an idea may be years away, but it is possible now.

C&D materials recovery gives back so much. These processes create more jobs than landfilling the same materials, lengthen the life of our landfills, save our limited natural resources and preserve the embodied energy and carbon that was required to mine or harvest virgin resources and produce the building materials in the first place. Thanks to advances in BIM technology, we can know all the construction materials that go into a building, and in turn, anticipate its materials for recovery at the end of its useful life. And through proper C&D materials recovery coordination, we can work together to make connections and foster collaboration across the value chain, communicate to bridge the disconnects where they exist between actors, and create a system that works hard to preserve the value of materials by keeping these products circulating within, instead of leaking out of, our economy.

Corinne Rico is a project manager at Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB). She can be reached at crico@gbbinc.com.