Editor’s Note: The board of directors of the Construction Material Recycling Association recently held its mid-year meeting in Palm Springs, Calif. Below are the minutes of the meeting. For more information, contact the CMRA at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Roll Call/Minutes
The meeting began at 9:00 a.m.

In attendance: Bill Turley, Jay Glitz, John Adelman, Jonathan Hixon, Valerie Montecalvo, Michael Hammer, Rodd Palon, Dan Copp, Daniel Costello, Jason Haus, John Yeasting, John Kurtz, Phillip Nappi, Michael Gross and Tim Griffing.

Not Present: Rob Hosier, Rick O’Gara, Leonard Cherry, Jim Taylor, Tom Roberts, Tim Surmeier and Marty Hunter.

Guests: Michael Dinneen and Ken Pennington, Frank Road Recycling; Megan Tanel, Association of Equipment Manufacturers; and Bob Stuppy, Stanley LaBounty.

Minutes of last meeting approved.

Financial Report
Print outs were made available to every member of board in their package.

Balances as of June 30, 2010:

• Main CMRA Account: $79,012
• Issues & Education Fund: $54,803

Current Check Balances as of September 15, 2010

• Main CMRA Account: $105,625
• Issues & Education Fund: $63,266

Historically at this time last year we were at:

• Main CMRA Account: $63,266
• Issues & Education Fund: $76,651

 

We are up in CMRA because of funds earmarked for investment purposes. The delays in investing are due to stringent regulations since 9/11 on paperwork. Decision was made to invest approximately $30,000 total.

Shingle Forum: a profit was made by show, but there were a lot of one time expenses related to the CMRA’s work in shingle recycling. Our web expense doubled because we needed to upgrade the Web site to accommodate the promotion and information related to the Shingle forum. Credit card fees are high from people who paid their convention fees by card.  

Trade show costs: went from $28,000 to $95,000. This is due to the significant promotional cost for the Shingle Forum and other trade shows. Fees have also increased because members are allowed to pay their fees online at www.cdrecycling.org. The group made a note to remove members from Web site that have not renewed their membership or paid their fees.

Convention Committee
2011/ Green Highways: Valerie Montecalvo reported on 2011 Annual Meeting co-located with ConExpo-Con/Agg, including a Green Highways Forum that the CMRA is organizing with EPA, FHWA and AEM.

2012: For 2012, the CMRA convention will wait and see since the hotels/convention centers would like to see if they have other larger venues that book first and then they will see if they can accommodate us. Opryland or the Convention Center in downtown Nashville would be our first choice.

2013: We started negotiations for Las Vegas with the Mirage & the Rio. We are not ready to book the venue yet, but we will wait and see what transpires. Paris and Mandalay Bay are too expensive and do not want to commit early. Mining Media, which manages the show for us, is one-third of the cost to get the equipment in and out than what other shows use. Rio must have accommodations in the new towers, the old section is not desirable. Everyone agrees that the Voodo Lounge would be perfect for the fundraiser again at the Rio.

2014 Report: Megan Tanel, vice president of exhibitions for the Association of Equipment Manufactures (owners of Con/Agg and ConExpo) spoke about her opinion related to the benefits of CMRA co-locating with ConAgg/Con-Expo. Tanel discussed that her company’s strategy was based on streamlining and combining resources through co-location. She also suggested a pavilion concept that could raise awareness of how recycling and its associated equipment are tied to the green economy. Many pros and cons were discussed. Tanel will provide the board with a proposal.

Member Services Committee
Committee member present and reporting, Michael Dinneen

CMRA Employee Benefits Program Summary: Members were encouraged to reach out to Apollo General if they were interested in enrolling in any of the additional health supplemental programs. Same program used at other associations. All those who looked at it thought it was a good deal. CMRA doesn’t get paid for anyone using the program, but Apollo General has always supported the CMRA and will continue to.

Options for increasing membership in CMRA: What was done: Contact members who did not renew membership and ask why? Reasons:  Some members on hiatus because they cannot afford membership right now, and a couple who were interested in renewing membership and were contacted. Next steps: contact people who came to show and weren’t members. Less than 100.

CMRA staff did all of the renewals and mailings, and renewals came in. Each board member has a membership package in their paperwork to help increase membership. Board needs an updated list of members. CDrecycling.org has an updated list. Members are listed under “Find a Recycler.”

Material Standards Committee
Dan Costello reports weekly conference calls to start to define material specification particularly for wood. Board members received an early draft.

Designation for wood will be classified by grade and size.  Three sizes: under 3 in., 3 to 6 in. and over 6 in.  Then the grade would be A, B & C or Grade 1, 2, 3 etc. Depending on commercial value and what application it could be used in. How we arrived at these definitions and allowances was to look at existing definitions by Boiler manufactures Biomass facilities.  

There would be a price differential based on the grade as well.  The committee recognizes more work to be done.

Looking to get as many industry representatives as possible to get this standard set. Valerie Montecalvo to give her input on engineered biofuel and how they are getting this No. 2 grade material recognized by the state agency and approved as a standard. Better to have two specs either clean or engineered bio-fuel.  Fuel has to come from a facility in compliance, under roof and somewhat mechanized system.  Standards have to be set since all the fuels come into the facility to be burned are mixed together how is it determined where contaminates come from without standards. Contaminants make for emission issues for boilers. Environmentalists are bashing C&D biomass material without even knowing what the material is actually made from.  We have to get the boiler manufacturers in this too. We need a two-fold brochure on wood-derived fuel with facts readily available.

We need Btu content for the certification too. This is not just for boilers but for gasifiers and fuel manufacturers.

C&D fines were also discussed.

Shingle Recycling Committee
Committee feelsShinglerecycling.org should have the specifications posted.

Dan Krivit of Foth has a proposal that CMRA will provide to Chairman Jason Haus including BMPs within Midwest to produce material and get specifications. The DOT has not been forthcoming with information. Engineered/technical language should be added to website, but that will cost money to make updates.  Having this information available will help move the process along. Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Georgia are already doing this, but some states are on the edge of considering this.  The next Shingle Forum is October 27-28, 2011, in Dallas. This is such a hot topic discussion was had to have it every year or at least a webinar on the alternate. In lieu of having something in 2010, maybe have a webinar or do updates to the Web site. Dan Krivit and Bill want to keep the webinar simple. Have the Shingle Recycling Committee be the steering committee and pick out topics for the next Forum.  

Asbestos testing criteria discussed. We have a proposal from Redmann/Mahoney to run next Shingle Recycling Forum.  

The CMRA handbook should be made for free-standing specifications of wood, shingles, crumb rubber and crushed asphalt.  One place to go for this information.

Green Roads Conference in Denver. ASCE and NAPA are sponsors. This is different audience. CMRA is doing one at ConExpo-Con/Agg.

Safety Committee
John Schumacher of Assurance Safety Consulting, safety committee member, reported as Chairman Hosier was not available.  Referred to minutes of July’s conference call.
 

Primary items: Safety 360 OSHA training on Web site. Schumacher will review and by mid-October make recommendations on three different packages of training pertinent to C&D recycling. Uncertain how to promote the training on line.  Some of the cost of the training stays with CMRA. Turley will put it in C&D World and on cdrecycling.org  There are 75 different topics that will be narrowed down to three series related to our industry. Wants to go to a silo series with 10 topics specific to our industry. Schumacher will be speaker at the annual meeting. He will be prepared at that time to inform on this resource as a member benefit and have live internet available for a demo. Topics to be included: Lock-out/Tag-out, machine guarding confined space entry. To be ready for first of 2011.

Schumacher asked board for recommendations to make the safety more visible to members. Montecalvo asked if the program would be available in Spanish as well.  Duly noted and will be addressed. Also will need one for mixed C&D and recycled aggregate. Available on Web site for a nominal charge; it will be useful but not necessary profitable for the CMRA Most one-hour courses are $20. 10-hour is $125 and 30-hour is $300. OSHA is changing fine structure and how they look at repeat violations will be changing dramatically. Activities of Safety Committee for 2011 will be very noteworthy.  

Awards
Several possible nominees and winners were discussed.

Old Business
112/129 Boiler Rules: Turley met with top officials of  U.S. EPA of Off of Resource Conservation and Recovery with Bill Ralston of ReEnergy, a biomass boiler company. They had a great meeting with top people including two staff members from air division. They were referred to the air division in Durham, N.C. Turley made several calls and emails with no response. Outreach was successfully made with EPA Administrator Jackson.

State of Maine: Adelman reached out to U.S. Sen. Snowe, chair of Senate Recycling Caucus, sent a letter to U.S. EPA supporting wood recycling.  

CMRA wants C&D wood to have same designation as clean wood. Turley reported this will be an issue w/Sierra Club and other environmental groups. If industry wins, environmental groups will sue EPA, and vice-a-versa.

Third-party certification of C&D Recycling Facilities’ Recycling Rate program is proceeding.

New Business
Ceiling tiles. Armstrong has indicated an interest to work with C&D recyclers on taking in more of these, and they don’t have to be in pristine shape and palletized.

Internet Outreach
Hixon wanted to know how environmental groups get the word out to have people show up at meetings and raise a loud voice and how there is little support from public for industry. Montecalvo explained you need to get the local community behind you first and public outreach is an important component to successful recycling.  Recycling benefits the entire community, but if they do not understand how it works, the public can be your enemy. Outreach to environmental groups, local government, schools and civic groups inviting them to come and tour the facility and become educated.

College Tuition
Adelman brought to the table funding a chair or internship for a college student supported by the CMRA from the Issues and Education fund. Perhaps earmark the funds for research on issues that impact our industry. Much was discussed to further expand the idea including scholarships and local youth groups to support educating the younger generations on recycling and C&D industry. LEED Certification classes for adults for C&D could be supplemented. Green business promoted at a local mall was used as an example for public education. School volunteers run it.  A C&D line created at the museum for kids to understand recycling of demolition debris. Outreach and public education will help promote our industry.

Motion made to adjourned by Jonathan Hixon
Next Meeting in March 22
Minutes submitted by Valerie Montecalvo

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