| | LEED
Construction Company > LEED
Construction Articles > Spotlight on Green Builders - Construction & Demolition
Waste - Recycling in the TrenchesLEED Construction Company ArticlesSpotlight
on Green Builders - Construction & Demolition Waste - Recycling in the TrenchesBy
Jacqueline
HershipsIn 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
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jacqueline_Herships
http://EzineArticles.com/?Spotlight-on-Green-Builders---Construction-and-Demolition-Waste---Recycling-in-the-Trenches&id=666371  | This
website was created as a public service to promote green building and LEED construction
companies, by Bob Moore Construction and General Contractor.com. Bob Moore Construction
has been a leading commercial construction company in Texas since 1946, winning
several awards including the AGC General Contractor of the Year. The company is
the first Platinum Level member of the U.S. Green Building Council in north Texas.
It is also a member of AGC, Tilt-up Concrete Association, and the OSHA Local Partnership
Program. For more information about Bob Moore Construction's green building program,
please visit their website at General
Contractor.com |
|
|
