CDR facility in California earns certification

The mixed C&D recycling facility in South Gate, California, known as Construction and Demolition Recycling Inc. (CDR) and operated by Interior Removal Specialist Inc., has received certification from the Recycling Certification Institute (RCI).

The certification “ensures users of this facility that CDR’s recycling rates have been verified by a certified third party and are accurate, verifiable and reliable,” the company states in a press release.

“Construction and demolition debris makes up nearly 30 percent of the waste stream in California, and achieving verifiable recycling data is a major step for the state of California in its quest to achieve zero waste,” says Richard Ludt, director of environmental affairs at Interior Removal Specialist. “CDR is honored to be the first Southern California recycling facility to show the level of transparency required to qualify for RCI certification.”

According to Interior Removal Specialist, CDR is now eligible to offer a new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Pilot Credit point available to LEED 2009 and v4 projects for using a verified construction and demolition recycling facility.

“Being able to offer the additional point provides added value to our customers and their USGBC (United States Green Building Council) projects,” says Ludt. “Certification through RCI means that our customers and the cities we report to can rely on our facility recycling rates. Transparency can be hard to come by in our industry, and the third party certification by RCI helps us achieve a transparency that our competition cannot offer. CDR is the first and currently the only facility in the Southern California marketplace that has been certified and [is] able to offer the new LEED Pilot point.”

CDR’s facility has been designed to handle debris generated by commercial interior tenant improvement projects. Thus, the materials that many other facilities depend on for their diversion rates are the exception, rather than the rule for their incoming debris, says Ludt. Concrete, asphalt, dimensional lumber and metals comprise up to 80 percent by weight of the incoming debris at traditional facilities, yet make up only about 36 percent of commercial interior debris.

The CDR diversion rate as certified by RCI “proves that projects that send their material to the CDR facility are getting honest and verifiable diversion based on the materials coming out of their projects,” says Interior Removal Specialist. (Interior Removal Specialist was profiled in this 2008 article by Construction & Demolition Recycling.)

RCI oversees a national certification program for C&D recycling facilities. RCI says its “primary focus is on accurate recycling accounting to ensure that the recovery and recycling reports issued by certified facilities are real, verifiable, reproducible, and reasonable.”