Wis. to require C&D recycling on big jobs
By: Jim Johnson
December 07, 2009

Wisconsin has a goal to recycle half of the construction and demolition debris generated from state projects, but Jenna Kunde sees the potential to do even more.

With C&D debris making up nearly 30% of the municipal solid waste stream in the state, diverting the material would have an impact on the amount of material that gets buried each year.

Beginning at the first of the year, Wisconsin’s Division of State Facilities will require that construction debris be recycled from all state building projects costing at least $5 million. All state demolition projects, regardless of size, also must recycle.

It was back in 2005 that Gov. Jim Doyle came out with his Conserve Wisconsin agenda that called for green building standards for state buildings and established a 50% recycling goal.

Kunde’s WasteCap Resource Solutions Inc. then started working with the state facilities division to develop a C&D recycling program for state sites and conduct a series of pilot projects to demonstrate feasibility.

WasteCap Resource Solutions is a nonprofit organization providing waste reduction and recycling assistance and has extensive experience working with C&D debris.

Those five pilot projects, which included demolition, new construction and renovation work, averaged more than 80% recycling.

And that’s what has Kunde hopeful that next year’s 50% goal can be exceeded.

“We found that not only could they achieve a 50% recycling goal, but on average they had an 83% recycling [rate] when you average all of their recycling rates together,” said Kunde, executive director at WasteCap Resource Solutions.

The pilot projects were located throughout the state and varied in size in an effort to demonstrate the viability of recycling C&D debris under differing conditions.

“We found that in whatever area of the state, whether it was a small project or a large project, or construction or demolition or remodeling, in fact you could successfully reuse and recycle and achieve higher than a 50% recycling rate,” Kunde said.

Ted Gibson works for Green Valley Disposal as a roll-off container sales representative for construction projects, and he said his company is using C&D debris recycling as a sales tool to win new business.

Being able to show contractors how to recycle their waste and avoid landfill costs is especially important in these difficult economic times, Gibson said.

And having recycling options, instead of just disposal, can differentiate Waunakee, Wis.-based Green Valley from the next guy, he said. “I have to have something more than what my competition has.”

Green Valley worked with WasteCap Resource Solutions and the state on a demolition and construction project at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater campus that recycled almost 80% of the waste, Gibson said.

Not only can contractors avoid disposal fees by recycling, there also is the potential to make some money off of the recyclables depending on the markets for materials, he said

Gibson added that solid waste management companies will have to offer C&D recycling as the green building movement continues to expand.

“It’s kind of like a train leaving the station,” he said. “You better get on it or you will be left standing behind.”

Being involved in one of the pilot projects also helped Green Valley, a subsidiary of Republic Services Inc. of Phoenix, improve its recycling efforts.

“The pilot program got some of the rough edges of what we were doing out of the way,” Gibson said.

Kunde said she also believes that contractors exposed recycling on state projects then take those practices to other private jobs. And that could have a huge impact across the state.

“I see as the future potential to recycle on all state of Wisconsin projects and for contractors to recycle on private projects, for owners to then be able to ask their contractors to recycle and for haulers to be able to offer recycling on projects,” Kunde said.

Miron Construction Co. Inc., based in Neenah, Wis., was involved in the pilot recycling projects and now recycles at all of the company’s job sites.

“The costs of implementing a construction waste management plant are offset with the savings in avoiding landfill disposal fees,” said Tim Andrew, senior project manager at Miron. “Change is always difficult at first, but once the field personnel and the subcontractors are aware of the benefits and CWM [construction waste management] expectations, it’s not difficult to implement and actually becomes a positive experience.”

While Wisconsin set the threshold at $5 million for the value of state construction projects that will be required to recycle starting next year, Kunde said a goal is to lower that figure in the coming years.

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