S.B. Cox responds to customers’ wishes to go green by making C&D recycling operations work in a low tip fee

By WILLIAM TURLEY, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & EDITOR

A lot of companies enter the mixed C&D recycling market from another business, usually as a natural extension of what they are doing already. S.B. Cox Inc. is a long-time demolition contractor, and demo is still a large part of the now diversified company. But developing and building S.B. Cox’s mixed C&D recycling facility was not a natural extension of the demolition business, said owner S. Barbee Cox III. It was more driven by the roll-off business, where customers were looking for a green alternative to landfilling. While S.B. Cox had long had a C&D landfill near its headquarters in Richmond, there were no real C&D recycling options for a long time in that part of the state. Yet with 25 trucks and around 1,200 boxes, S.B. Cox’s roll-off segment is an important part of the company. In response, the company set up its own recycling center.
It wasn’t just because of a few customers wanting their material recycled for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), said Cox. According to him, many customers aren’t even going for a LEED status, they just want to do the right thing by the environment. For that reason he believes green building is here to stay. “It is not a fad,” said the second-generation owner. “I am banking on it.”
His money is into recycling three ways; a portable aggregate recycling plant that has been a part of the company for 15 years, a mixed C&D recycling facility located with eyesight of the company headquarters, and several pieces of equipment for metals processing. The crushing system is an Eagle 1000 portable system with a three-stage impact crusher that has a 42- x 32-inch feed opening. The system has a double-deck screen for sizing materials. It was the first concrete recycling system in the Richmond area, and most of the product that was manufactured was used as fill at the company’s demolition sites or as temporary roads at the company’s landfill. Now, said Cox, the company is focusing on making a product to meet Virginia DOT specifications. Still, it has been difficult to compete in Virginia with recycled aggregates as the prices of natural aggregates ($4.50/ton) have been so low. “It can be cheaper to put concrete in a hole than it is to crush it. But we are starting to get some price spread from natural aggregate,” said Cox. “Plus the material is much more accepted now.”
It doesn’t hurt that green building is helping this along. As an example, Cox pointed to a demolition project his company is doing at James Madison University. “It’s not a LEED project, but they are paying us to recycle as much as possible,” he said.
The other part of S.B. Cox’s recycling business comes from its mixed C&D activities. It is not easy to recycle in that part of Virginia. Tipping fees in Richmond proper range around $25/ton, and because of the low prices at landfills throughout the state, Cox said that probably half of the C&D south of Philadelphia ends up in Virginia. Even with the couple of markets available for recycled end products, any system had to be cost effective and inexpensive, but able to handle large volumes, in order to compete.
S.B. Cox, like so many others, started out five years ago as a simple dump-and-pick operation. Cox knew the operation had to improve, so he started doing some research and went to a couple of shows to learn more. He also toured a couple of plants, CMRA members Waterway Materials in Chesapeake, Va., and New England Recycling in Taunton, Mass. Cox was drawn to the simplicity of the latter’s line, and decided to set up a similar plant, which was manufactured by CBI.
Located in an old corrugated box facility, trucks and boxes are brought in and C&D tipped onto a concrete floor. A Caterpillar 325 excavator with a contractor’s grapple is used to sort out the non-recyclables, such as carpet, and feed the sorting line. Then everything passes through a sturdy trommel screen set to remove 5/8-inch fines. With such a tight setting, the plant only produces about 10% to 15% fines for alternative daily cover, which it uses at its own landfill. Andy Vojtecky, plant manager, said that six to eight pickers are on the main line pulling out metals, OCC, inerts, wood, some plastics, and any other recyclables. Residuals run off the back of line and are carted to the landfill. The system boasts a 78% recycling rate. There is a small wood fuel market in the state, but it is competing against the residuals from the woodworking industry, which is quite strong in the state.
This simple line is the type of system needed to compete in a low tipping fee area. Cox says he considered putting in further processing equipment, including a grinder to process the wood or a shredder to reduce the volume on the residuals. There is room for those, but Cox decided not to pull the trigger because of the low value of the products. “It allowed us to start out with a smaller investment.”  Also, it was discovered that the residuals could fit into a truck at the 20 to 22-ton range, a heavy enough truck to warrant hauling to the landfill. An American Baler unit was installed to handle plastics and OCC. The latter only needs to be hauled 5 miles, and Cox gets an upcharge for delivery and being baled.
Cox admits that in a way the mixed C&D recycling operation has not been very profitable since it opened in June 2008. At first the plant received about 50 loads a day. “We weren’t knocking them dead with that, but it was OK,” said Cox. “Now we are down in the 30 loads per day range. Economy got us, and now another recycling plant has opened nearby.” Still, the company does not regret opening the plant as it provides its roll-off customers an extra service. And, recycling is where the money is, Cox said. “Profits have not been in the work the last few years, it has been getting the recyclables, especially metals,” out of concrete crushing, laborers at the landfill, demolition jobs, and the recycling center. “We have been digging that last dollar out through recycling.”
While the recycling center may be an extension of the roll-off business, roll-offs could be considered an extension of S.B. Cox’s landfill business. Before the landfills came the demolition business. Barbee Cox’s father started out as an excavating contractor with a few dump trucks. He got asked to tear down a garage and liked the work. “Back in the 1960s and 1970s you would pay to tear down a house and make your money selling the brick, selling the lumber,” said Cox. “Demolition contractors were doing reuse before it became cool. In fact, scrap dealers and demolition contractors were green before green was something.”
In that era anyone who had a hole in the ground and needed some fill could accept C&D. The Virginia DEQ started cracking down on the practice in the late 1970s, which prompted S.B. Cox to purchase a true landfill, an ongoing operation near the Richmond airport. They operated this facility until it was filled a few years ago and shut down. But thanks to the farsightedness of Cox’s father, in 1991 the company purchased a permitted, 40-acre landfill site in a rural area 35 miles away. Now 90 acres are permitted and 17 million yards of air space remain. About 75% of the lined landfill’s filter stone is made from its recycled concrete, the rest natural aggregate. The landfill’s distance is another reason the recycling center was set up. On average the company was dumping 120 boxes a day, and only a third went to its own landfill. The rest went to competitors. Now with the recycling facility, loads can go there and fewer to a competitor.
Currently demolition remains a large part of the S.B. Cox portfolio, which also includes a six-batch-plant concrete business with 30 ready-mix trucks and a portable toilet business. About 75% of the demolition work is commercial, 15% residential, and 10% industrial. The excavators are all Caterpillar. There are four Model 345 units, eight 330s, two 325s that are usually in the recycle yard and some 320s for the residential work. One of the 345s is a high reach machine, which is rare in those parts. “We considered getting a 365 for the high reach, but wanted to keep the boom under 100 feet,” said Cox. “It wasn’t because of the height, but the attachment you could put on it. We usually have a Caterpillar MP20 on it, a cracking jaw with a shear. That works well on concrete and steel structures.”
This machine was the reason S.B. Cox recently won a job down at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The project specified no cranes, which limited the local pool that could bid on the job. “It gives the contractor with high reach an advantage,” said Cox. “We saw that coming. In fact, the high reach is kind of like our recycling center; it is the future.”
The company still operates the remnants of the past, a crane and wrecking ball. Its two crane operators are aged 61 and 73, and Cox notes that nobody is training new crane operators, “including us.” When those two are gone, the crane will probably be retired. The crane and high reach were recently working together on taking down a stadium, with one unit on one end and the other starting on the opposite end. They were to meet in the middle, the new and the old.
Cox said the high reach with its 86-ft boom is a very expensive machine to run, and takes an extremely skilled operator to handle. “We treat it with the same respect we do a crane. Only one operator runs the high reach, and we try not to put any hours on it because it is so expensive.”
The attachments used are almost all Stanley LaBounty. The company has several contractor grapples, three universal processors, two pulverizers, a handful of hammers and a shear. In cooperation with its scrap dealer, S.B. Cox also owns a mobile scrap baler. Its haul trucks are all Mack.
Despite its size, S.B. Cox has the feel of a small company, something Cox himself promotes. He shows up all the time on jobs to supervise the progress, something customers seem to appreciate. He also likes to work with smaller companies, such as his current scrap dealer. Cox said they almost work on a handshake agreement, and doesn’t even bother to weigh his trucks before sending over the company’s scrap haul. As this dollar revenue amounts to a low six-figure number every month, this is no small amount of trust. But it is the way business should be done whenever possible in its market area that extends from Eastern Tennessee to North Carolina, although most of the work is in Virginia.
Cox bought five excavators last summer, all used, all thanks to the tumbling economy. He is still looking for other equipment as opportunities are there for those with cash. He noted the change in demolition since the 1970s. “Back then you just pushed it into a pile and hauled it off to a hole in the ground,” he said. “You worked the heck out of the machines.” Now more care is taken. He said it all comes from the European model for the demolition industry; the recycling, the high reach being the most prominent examples. It is a trend that will continue, he believes, saying the business will continue to become more mechanized. But in the end the demolition, the hauling and recycling remain dirty work. “It is good work, but not everybody wants to do this.” There will always be companies like S.B. Cox there to do it.