By William Turley, associate publisher & Editor

Do USGBC and its related Leadership in Environmen-tal and Energy Design (LEED) program want to continue to see construction and demolition materials recycled as part of green building, or at least anyone get any credits for doing it? Difficult to believe after reading the latest version of the proposed LEED 2012 recently out for comment. The current section on credits for recycling generated C&D materials are under guidelines where virtually no mixed C&D facilities in North America will be able to provide any credit help, despite the fact the CMRA has repeatedly discussed with them the realities of C&D recycling and provided guidance to them, all of which is outlined below.

For background, LEED is the most prevalent green building program out there in a world wants green marketing. Many developers and construction contractors work within the program to provide their customers added credits through the recycling of generated C&D materials. In fact, under LEED, the recycling credits were the most claimed credits overall. Why? Because they are the most economically feasible credits, as opposed to most of the opportunities under the program.

In fact, because they are the most claimed credits is one reason USGBC wants to “raise the bar” on the section. So now the value of concrete and metal recycling is only counted at 75% because we are told it is too easy to recycle that material, everybody does it. Alternative daily cover (ADC) is no longer counted at all, even though it was explained to them that about 30% of the material received at a mixed C&D facility is 2-inch minus or smaller, caused by the demolition and transportation process so nothing we can do about it, and there are virtually no other markets for the ADC product except to replace virgin soil as a cover at landfills. Would you rather use farmland or worthless fines for this required cover? I even suggested that USGBC limit to 25% of a facility’s recycling rate the amount of ADC that could be counted toward that recycling rate, which is not all bad, and it would stop the operations grinding up virtually everything and claiming 95% recycling rate, a questionable practice at best. But there is a bias against considering anything going to a landfill as an end product.

As a final insult, LEED 2012 raised the levels to gain credits from 50% for one point to 65%, and 85% for two points from 75%. So if a facility gets 30% fines used as ADC, and has to recycle 65% more of the total to get even one point, a total of 95%, that leaves a 5% residual. On top of that, the concrete and metals, which are most often recovered, now only count for 75% of value. Virtually no facility can get to a 65% recycling rate under those conditions.

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