[Greenbuilding] Landfill is counted as waste management

[JAY WALSH]

I thank you for bringing up the issue of how materials we are sending to
recycling are being used in some cases for purposes which may not be keeping
them out of the landfill. But, I wouldn’t point to LEED and the associated
points assigned to this credit as an issue. How this recycling waste is being
dealth with is an issue for the recycling industry and municipalities to
address.

The typical home built in the US produces on average 4 pounds of waste per
square foot of house built (NAHB study). Raw wood, sheetrock, plastic,
cardboard glass etc.  In an average year we build about a million homes in the
US with an average home size of 2,400 square feet.  Let’s do the math, 4 lbs
per sf times 2,400 sf = 9,600 (or 4.8 tons per home), 4.8 tons times 1 million
homes/yr =  4.8 million tons to land fills each year. This amount of waste is
the real issue here, material of which a high percentage COULD be recycled but
is going straight to the landfill. 

The larger POINT in the LEED points system as I see it is to get developers,
contractors and sub contractors to consider jobsite recycling and develop
methods and on site systems to separate and recycle. For anyone who has worked
in the building industry you know that “change” comes slowly here. The
adoption and use of new materials and methods does not happen overnight in
this industry and until recycling on the typical jobsite becomes a "standard
of practice", any effort to change the course of this waste stream is
important. 
 
Sincerely,


Jay Walsh
Energy Analyst
Energy Star Homes and LEED-H Rater
Center for Ecological Technology (CET)
112 Elm Street
Pittsfield, MA 01201
413-445-4556 x23
jayw at cetonline.org

> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 13:17:01 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Brad Guy <guy_brad at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Greenbuilding] Landfill is counted as waste management
> To: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
> Message-ID: <475673.86448.qm at web30303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> By lack of distinguishing among reuse, and recycling
> levels of quality, LEED allows the counting of
> construction and demolition debris that goes to
> alternative daily cover towards the MR Credit 2
> Construction Waste Management.
> 
> Alternative daily cover is what landfills put on the
> open face of the waste each day to cover it. Mulch is
> also a ADC.
> 
> To be clear, LEED MR Credit 2 does not explcitly state
> that alternative daily cover is recycling, but the
> fact is that haulers are claiming it as recycling, and
> in fact some states classify it as recycling.
> 
> This is also not to say that, as some will, if not use
> C&D debris then have to get something "new" and that
> local governments are considering this recycling. That
> is fine - the point being should it be rewarded as
> recycling in LEED.
> 
> And if being incorporated into the de facto national
> green building standard it seems the intent of the
> credit is made irrelevant and agenda of
> reuse/recycling is being greatly set-up from an ironic
> corner. 
> 
> I was wondering if others have had experience with
> this, what they did with it, and any thoughts on
> better way to address how green standards might define
> C&D recycling to acknowledge that not all C&D
> recycling is the same...
> Thanks,
> Brad
> 
> 
> Brad Guy
> Ph.D. Program
> School of Architecture
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Cell: 814-571-8659
>