C&D Recycling in the Pacific Northwest

By Preston Horne-Brine

The Pacific Northwest chapter of the CMRA has been in existence for a little more than a year. It represents a dynamic C&D recycling industry that has accomplished much but is also looking ahead to what comes next. The challenges are daunting. Our Chapter will work to facilitate the engagement of its member businesses in some key developments.

The C&D industry will become engaged in climate change issues and secure the financial benefits from the policies and programs that will recognize and reward the large greenhouse gas emissions reductions that come from robust C&D recycling activity. Our industry will also begin to work directly with manufacturers on smart-design of building products to make them more recyclable and environmentally “green” as well as improve their performance characteristics. Green building practices and building products are a growing, value-added segment of the building industry and the trend is likely to continue.

(To view the figures and additional pictures in this article, you must read it in our online magazine.)

Where we’ve been and are now
The construction and demolition recycling industry in the northwest corner of the county has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last 18 years. Independent recycling businesses here have been doing most of the developmental work. Most of the industry has developed in the coastal states of Washington, Oregon, and the province of British Columbia, and we are now starting to see growth in inland areas as well.

As an example, for Washington State in 2006 and 2007 there were more than 3.25 million tons of C&D debris recovered, recycled, and sold back into the commercial economy for each of those years. That is a recycling rate of around 55% for each year. There was no real C&D recycling in Washington State or the Pacific Northwest prior to 1992.

Most of this huge volume of recycled material is concrete, asphalt, and wood (urban and land clearing) but the full range of C&D materials recycled has become quite broad to include drywall scrap, roofing tear-offs, scrap metal, old cardboard, carpet scrap, old paint, fluorescent light bulbs and increasing commingled C&D debris.

Private, independent C&D recyclers are often at the front of the line in doing the hard and expensive work of obtaining and maintaining the involvement of contractors and building owners in recovering recyclable debris from their job sites.

In many places, the cost of disposal of waste debris is very high and recycling the material, instead of disposing it, saves money. Disposal costs will continue to rise over the long term. Regions of the country where waste disposal is presently cheap will not always have it so.

Contractors want simple, clear recycling programs and many are now provided recovery service for mixed C&D debris requiring fewer collection containers on site. The growing popularity with builders/owners of the LEED green building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council is also supporting the recycling of C&D materials from their building sites. Local government initiatives that incentivize or require more C&D recycling as a matter of policy, are just now beginning to kick into gear around the Pacific Northwest.

The economic downturn and huge drop in building activity in the last year or two has obviously put a dent in C&D recycling in the Pacific Northwest as it has elsewhere. C&D recycling businesses are struggling to stay afloat. But even under these difficult conditions, there is a strong sense in the industry that each and all businesses must continue to move forward.

Collection, processing capacity continues to grow
Collection capacity is very good with a great deal of competition between all types of haulers of C&D debris. Independent recycling businesses flourish in this arena although there is intense competition with garbage hauling businesses that are doing more and more C&D hauling. Although there is much competition between all businesses in securing C&D recovery hauls, the garbage businesses tend to be larger with their fully developed collection capacity for handling garbage. Because of their primary garbage hauling activity they have large inventories of containers and trucks; extensive customer lists; and routing patterns and experience that they can bring to bear.

Some local governments are now attempting to exert more flow control over the hauling of C&D material. Also, some certificated garbage companies are also trying to extend their exclusive garbage-handling authority to cover C&D debris. If such efforts are successful and expand, they will put a real crimp on competitive recycling in our region and may impair the necessary growth and cost-effectiveness of the industry in the coming years.

Processing capacity for C&D materials and the underlying technologies to convey, sort, clean, size, and density into industrial commodities have become quite sophisticated during the last 15 years. In the Pacific Northwest, these processing technologies have been developed primarily by independent recycling businesses over this time. More recently, processing technologies have taken another leap in complexity in being capable of handling commingled C&D materials. During this recent period of time, the garbage companies have begun to erect C&D material-recovery-facilities to process recovered C&D material; often in conjunction with their MRFs which process recyclables from their contracted collection of residential curbside materials; and also often co-located with their garbage transfer facilities.

In addition to growing complexity and range, these new processing technologies are becoming increasingly reliable in operation and are producing commodity output streams that are quite consistent as commodity raw materials for sale.

C&D recycled products markets are getting robust
Market outlets for recycled and processed C&D commodities are growing in breadth and in the range of types of materials that can be purchased and used. The number of such outlets is still sparse, particularly for rural areas, but geographic intensity is improving.

More and more manufacturing companies are using some amount of recycled C&D commodities as raw materials in their production operations. They are finding raw material cost advantages, obtaining newer suppliers from much closer locations than their traditional raw materials, and beginning to realize the marketing potential in the green aspect of now making their products with recycled-content. Manufactures are now learning that use of recycled raw materials saves energy and costs in either supply procurement or in their actual production process. As the number and type of market outlets grows, recyclers are now beginning to see growth in overall demand for such C&D commodities by such manufacturers. We are also seeing much use of recovered and processed concrete/asphalt (made into gravel substitutes) by builders, directly back into their onsite construction projects.

Although current economic conditions are weak and overall demand is also weak, the relative strengthening of the markets-for and value- of processed C&D commodities is getting more robust. While not helpful to the bottom line of most recycling businesses right now, it is a very good development that will position C&D recycling businesses for growth and profitability in the future.

The pace of change will not lessen for C&D recycling businesses and the need to keep innovating and adapting will only become more and more imperative. Here is what’s coming in the near future.

Climate change and C&D recycling
As recycling systems and recycled materials have become a more mainstream part of our economy and as we systematically assess our global impact on the environment, it is becoming clearer that recycling is a vital “materialsmanagement” strategy, according to a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study. That is, it is becoming a fundamentally new way of supplying raw materials to manufacturers that is more economical, efficient, and can have both local and global environmental benefits.

The main reason recycling can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to climate change solutions is that the use of recycled commodities as feedstocks instead of traditional raw materials eliminates the vast levels of emissions that come from extracting and processing of those virgin raw materials (as in mining, forestry, agriculture and food packaging operations) which are traditionally used as raw materials by manufacturers. Use of recycled commodities as feedstocks also reduces energy use by these processors and manufacturers. This also contributes to GHG emissions reductions.

Emissions reductions can also come from recycling activity when it reduces the transportation and disposal of these products (including food) or their waste residuals when compared to traditional methods of handling them. However the latter potential is much smaller than the huge upstream opportunities that come from substituting recycled raw materials for virgin ones in manufacturing or building production.

According to the EPA, total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States in 2006 were 7,054 million metric tons (of CO2E) for the year. About 42% of these existing GHG emissions came from production, distribution, and use of products; both goods and foods. Another 34% came from operating HVAC and lighting systems in building, use of appliances and other devices, and the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in the United States.

It is now recognized that these growing global greenhouse gas emissions are human induced and that regulatory and commercial strategies and programs must be employed to reduce these emissions and the associated risks to human health and welfare. Policy makers and scientists are calling for emissions reductions in the range of 50% of past emissions (or higher depending on your baseline and measurement method and goal year). Hence longterm goals are to stop the existing rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions and to further reduce GHG emissions in the United States by 3,000 to 4,000 million metric tons (of CO2E) per year at a minimum.

From the same EPA study, in 2006, U.S. municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling (at a 32.6 % recovery level) resulted in the avoidance of nearly 183 million metric tons (of CO2E) in GHG emissions. Additional MSW recycling along with expanded C&D recycling will contribute to the achievement of sought-after reductions. Taken together, highly successful recycling programs, of both (MSW and C&D) streams could provide up to 10% of the solution toward the long-term reductions goals for our country. In particular, increases in C&D recycling to a 75% national recovery rate will result in an additional 113 million metric tons (of CO2E) of GHG emissions for the United States. (For more information from the study, see p. 40).This is a large part of the overall climate change solution given that the C&D recycling industry is a relatively new and small one in the context of our larger national economy.

There are potential opportunities for C&D recyclers to benefit from the achievement of such climate change solutions. Companies, manufacturers, processors, and builders are likely to start looking to recycled materials and securing such supplies as an opportunity to reduce their GHG emissions and energy use. Projects and programs will be developed by partnerships between these companies and their recycled material suppliers.

There will be specific opportunities when such companies are given or required to have capped “offset allowances” that they must adhere to. Or there could be GHG emissions reducing projects called “carbon-offset” projects that create other opportunities for participation by C&D recyclers. One these opportunities are developed into full fledge programs and project their will be direct financial advantages for C&D recyclers.

As of now, these are potential opportunities. Much work must be done by C&D recyclers to develop relationships and partner with manufacturing and building companies around climate change solutions. Then we, as an industry, will need to act on such awareness and such relationships; to create the regulatory and incentive framework that will measure and reward the right, successful operations in the C&D field. The potential is there. We must make it happen.

“Smart-design” activity will involve C&D recycling
Innovation is increasingly about designing and creating improved and more useful products that work better, are more cost-effective, and that go “lighter” on the environment. Innovation includes improvements in both specific product characteristics but also in the manufacturing practices and processes that are used to produce them. Such innovation includes products that can be more readily repaired, reused, refurbished, recycled and/or are simply more durable over time and versatile in their uses. It certainly includes making the content of such products from raw materials that are “closedloop” recycled commodities.

Innovations in design consider products systematically over their life-cycle and target: materials selection for product content; manufacturing processes and operations; product use; transport and packaging; modularity, maintenance, refurbishment alternate uses, and; end of product use.

Successful “smart design” of products/ buildings creates many benefits for manufactures, builders, suppliers, and consumers/owners alike: Creative, unique, optimized product design (characteristics); lower costs and savings (efficient use: materials and energy); reduced manufacturing cycle, change-out, or building times; improved marketing and sales position and opportunities; reduced regulatory concerns and; lesser environmental impacts including GHC emissions.

Such smart-design strategies will be used by durable goods manufacturers and consumer goods/packaging makers alike. Smart-design strategies will also be used by the most innovative building owners, designers, and contractors in creating green buildings and products to put into them.

Manufacturers and builders are increasingly seeking to create added value for their customers and competitive advantage for their companies, products, and buildings. The initial design stage is where most of the parameters and costs of product development, manufacture/construction, and use are critically determined. C&D recyclers will have to become aware and engaged with manufactures and architects/builders in providing advice and feedback on innovative smart-design efforts as critical suppliers to those companies.

Preston Horne-Brine is executive director of the CMRA–Northwest Chapter.

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