Vermont man earns EPA recognition for C&D end market development

While recycling some construction and demolition (C&D) material is straightforward, other materials, like asphalt shingles, pose major challenges in finding end markets.

In a rural state with just one shingle recycler, James “Buzz” Surwilo is tackling the challenge in an initiative that has earned him recent recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA awarded Surwilo with an individual Merit Award for his work as an environmental analyst with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). He was among 25 recipients across New England honored at the 2019 Environmental Merit Awards ceremony Sept. 10.

As part of his role with the DEC, Surwillo reviews Vermont’s Act 250 plans, which require construction projects to have a waste management plan, and offers suggestions for improving them.

While his work involves all types of C&D material, Surwilo has been working with the DEC on boosting recycling rates for asphalt shingles since the late 1990s.

Vermont produces about 25,000 tons of waste shingles per year, according to the EPA. The state has just one shingle recycler—Myers Container Service of Winooski—that processes about 2,500 tons of shingles annually.

Surwilo works closely with Myers in keeping the quality of the recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) up to standard. While the state’s department of transportation is “not enthusiastic” about using RAS in hot mix asphalt, Surwilo says, he worked with the agency to begin using RAS in shoulder paving and dirt road maintenance projects.

Because RAS has few uses beyond road applications, Surwilo says, a current focus of his is working with the Department of Transportation to expand its use. A law passed in Vermont in 2015 mandating greater C&D recycling has spurred a DEC pilot program that Surwilo hopes will open more doors for RAS use in the state. Last fall, the DEC began funding road pavement projects that used RAS in an unbound aggregates mix.

“We’re using money to try this material out and hoping it will be successful,” Surwilo says. “If it enhances the performance of these roads, which we’re hoping for, then we can trumpet this as a material [the department of transportation] might want to look at.”

OSHA finalizes revisions to beryllium standards for construction

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has finalized its June 27, 2017, proposal to revise construction and shipyards standards related to beryllium exposure.

OSHA proposed revoking the ancillary provisions in the beryllium standards for construction and shipyards while retaining the permissible exposure limit of 0.2 micrograms (ug) per cubic meter and the short-term limit exposure of 2 ug per cubic meter. OSHA says it proposed the revision because its standards apply to the primary operations in which exposures to beryllium occur in construction (abrasive blasting) and shipyards (abrasive blasting and welding), and that those other standards might adequately protect workers from exposure to beryllium in those operations.

In the final rule, published on Sept. 30, OSHA does not implement the proposal to revoke all of the standards’ ancillary provisions. The agency says it has determined there is not complete overlap in protections between the standards’ ancillary provisions and other OSHA standards. “To the extent there is overlap between specific requirements within the ancillary provisions and other OSHA standards, OSHA will account for that overlap in the new proposal,” the final rule says.

The final rule does, however, extend the compliance dates for the ancillary provisions to September 2020 to account for its new proposal to revise or remove specific provisions. It also maintains enforcement of the permissible exposure limit.

In a forthcoming rulemaking, OSHA will publish a proposal to amend the beryllium standards for construction and shipyards by more appropriately tailoring the requirements of the standards to the exposures in these industries. The proposed changes would maintain safety and health protections for workers, facilitate compliance with the standards and increase cost savings, OSHA says.

“OSHA’s decision to delay compliance obligations for the ancillary provisions reflects the agency’s determination that it would be unreasonable to expect employers to comply by the dates in the 2017 final rule given the agency’s decisions to retain all ancillary provisions in this final rule and proceed with a separate rulemaking to propose different amendments to the standards. The uncertainty inherent in this regulatory posture makes additional time essential,” the final rule says. “Requiring compliance with the 2017 final rule, or even requiring employers to expend time and money to determine how to comply with the 2017 final rule, would make little sense when the standards may ultimately be amended via the forthcoming rulemaking.”

Meridian Waste announces North Carolina acquisition

Meridian Waste, an integrated non-hazardous solid waste services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, announced it has signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire the equity interests of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based Shotwell Landfill Inc., Shotwell Transfer Station II Inc., Capitol Waste Transfer LLC, Capital Recycling LLC and Morrisville Transfer Station LLC. Collectively, these assets are under the banner of the Shotwell Companies.

The stock purchase agreement is scheduled to close within 90 days. This will be Meridian Waste’s first acquisition within North Carolina and the 11th acquisition since the company transitioned to private stock under the ownership of Warren Equity Partners (WEP) in April 2018.

The acquisition includes Shotwell’s construction and demolition (C&D) landfill and C&D transfer stations. Additionally, the purchase includes the Morrisville Transfer Station, which is a municipal solid waste (MSW) transfer station that is currently under construction. The purchase will also include disposal and commercial contracts associated with the disposal facilities as well as hauling assets.

“The strategic value of this acquisition is a game-changer for Meridian Waste,” says Walter Hall, CEO of Meridian Waste.

According to the company, the expansion into North Carolina reinforces Meridian Waste’s commitment to expand in the South. The company now owns collection and disposal operations within six states.

As many local and state jurisdictions continue their push to enforce recycling mandates, and as the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program continues to emphasize awarding credits for construction and demolition (C&D) material recovery and recycling, it is more important than ever for C&D recyclers to ensure a high level of accuracy in their diversion and recovery rates.

The Sacramento, California-based Recycling Certification Institute (RCI) was formed to help these facilities prove just that.

Through its Certification of Recycling Rates (CORR) Protocol, which was developed to International Organization of Standardization (ISO)-level standards, RCI helps recyclers verify their diversion rates from landfill.

Under the CORR Protocol, which RCI has overseen since 2014, two dozen recycling lines are currently certified, with several more recyclers going through the process to get their lines certified by the end of 2019.

Stephen Bantillo, executive director of RCI, spoke with Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine about reception to the program, the benefits it has provided to the industry and the organization’s push to mandate certified rates for LEED projects.

Construction & Demolition Recycling (C&DR): How do you think the CORR program has been received to date from the C&D recycling community?

Stephen Bantillo (SB): It’s been a mixed bag. Some folks are open to it and very interested in becoming certified because they see how it will benefit their company. Others may have some concerns about what might be discovered [when their facility is audited by an independent third party], and there are a variety of reasons for that. Sometimes recyclers think they’re doing a good job, but they are hesitant to go through the process because of concerns about repercussions if it is discovered they have been reporting incorrectly. And in other instances, we’ve had facilities that the industry recognizes as innovators and as the gold standards, and we have gone through the certification process and found that they weren’t reporting 100 percent correctly. So, for these facilities, while their recycling rate may have gone down, they welcomed this feedback because they want to be reporting correctly. They appreciated having another set of eyes come in and find those errors so they can improve their processes and get their rates back up.

In the end, it’s a business process audit. The CORR Protocol doesn’t really care about what the recycling rate is. It cares about how that facility arrived at its recycling rate. So, it really looks at the various business processes, particularly those related to data management, tracking and reporting. In many respects, going through the certification process is a significant benefit to the facility because it helps them validate and improve their accuracy and efficiencies.

C&DR: How do you think RCI certification affects the contractors who work with these recyclers?

SB: It’s not just the recycling facilities, but also the contractors and builders who can benefit when a recycler gets certified. They like to have a certified facility in their area where they can get verified recovery rates for their projects because they want to know how they’re doing in terms of diversion as well. They’re going through the efforts of pulling these recyclable materials out from their projects to get them recovered, and many are looking to achieve some LEED points for their efforts. Above all, they appreciate knowing that they have verified recycling rates they can rely on, which is especially important for those who are “building green.”

For the recyclers, this certification can set them apart from other facilities in the same region with whom they are competing. They want their customers to know that they’ve gone through the verification process and that their numbers are accurate, and all of that information on these facilities is available in the reports on the RCI website.

C&DR: Some recyclers have expressed concern of going through the certification process and having to prove their recycling rates while their competitors may not be held to the same standards, specifically as it pertains to some LEED jobs. What is RCI’s perspective on this?

SB: Certified facilities have expressed frustration that the USGBC is still accepting the self-reported recycling rates of all facilities around them that haven’t been certified. Many believe that the facilities might be making up these recycling rates or inflating their numbers. There’s a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding related to recovery rates at facilities. For LEED projects, the USGBC does not count alternative daily cover towards diversion, but a lot of facilities like to include the alternative daily cover in their recovery rates they report. When a contractor comes up to them and asks what their recovery rate is, they’ll state a high number and the contractor may decide to bring their loads to them because they say they have a higher recovery rate while not fully understanding the nuances and the details of how that rate is determined.

At RCI, our preference would be that USGBC stop giving points for projects based on unverified recovery rates. If they’re focusing on performance, then their rating system [should be set up] to accept only clarified numbers. Otherwise, there’s the potential that as they begin to calculate the environmental benefits and greenhouse gas emission reductions of green building projects, they could be misreporting those numbers. In essence, if you’re not verifying these rates, the old adage of “garbage in, garbage out” may apply.

C&DR: What kind of communication has RCI had with the USGBC on this issue?

SB: When the USGBC was looking for input for LEED version 4.1, both RCI and the Construction & Demolition Recycling Association submitted a very clear set of recommendations on how USGBC should go forward with that related to materials and resources. We recommended that they should set up the program so that points are given out for materials sent to facilities that have been certified to a national standard. That’s the only way they’re going to have a high level of confidence that the numbers have been verified and are accurate. USGBC didn’t adhere to this guidance for the original 4.1 beta version of LEED, but they got much closer to that with the most recent release in July.

The latest version of LEED has two defined paths—paths 2 and 4—that clearly identify options for projects that make it simpler for contractors to use facilities that have been certified by RCI. We’re very appreciative of that. Now, if contractors have a project and they’re looking for one LEED point, they can take all of the mixed C&D to a facility certified by RCI as capable of 50 percent recovery. They don’t have to do any sort of separation themselves, which has been really problematic for a lot of the builders because of space constraints on the job and the extra work this requires. Now, for two points and 75 percent recovery, they can send all the mixed C&D to an RCI-certified facility with one additional stream pulled out. So, commonly they’ll pull out wood or drywall or even metal and take materials to a facility to get LEED points. Now with paths 1 and 3 in the latest version of LEED, contractors have to do more separation to receive credit. At RCI, we’d like to see paths 1 and 3 go away because we much prefer that materials go to a facility that’s been audited and has the numbers verified to both elevate the C&D industry and give USGBC assurances on performance relative to the recovery of the C&D materials.

C&DR: Why do you think the USGBC hasn’t required CORR certification across the board?

C&DR: Local and state governments are getting more involved with pushing for C&D diversion. What effect has this had on the recycling industry?

SB: One of the challenges we’re dealing with is that government agencies are setting recycling mandates that the current markets for construction and demolition materials don’t support. These high recovery rates are being written into local ordinances and they demand recovery of the maximum amount of material, which is a positive, but not to the extent that it encourages misreporting. Sometimes recycling facilities may report a higher recovery rate than they are actually achieving because they feel they have to so they can participate in the local government program. However, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Contractors are compelled to recycle material when mandated to do so. The conflict that arises is that the material they bring to a facility may be contaminated to the extent a recycling facility won’t want to take it in because they’re not going to be able to meet their recycling rate, so they turn contractors away, and then this causes issues. It’s an interesting dilemma for the folks who are writing the regulations to try to wrangle. A workable solution is to write regulations so that they are focused on the performance of a facility and that the facility goes through an audit process to verify its processes and not just its diversion percentage. Facilities often cannot control the quality of the material they receive, but if they are recovering the maximum amount of recoverable C&D, isn’t that a good thing? We think so.

C&DR: Every recycler wants to maximize their diversion. Are you optimistic that the industry is advancing and recyclers are improving how materials are managed?

SB: The short answer is yes. Many people know this already, but the robots are coming. Technology is improving the way we think about the recovery of C&D materials. There are several facilities across the country, including Recon Services in Austin, Texas, and Zanker Road in California, that have increased productivity and improved recovery rates through the introduction of robots, which generally leads to a higher quality of material that is able to find markets. We know that finding markets across the board is really challenging, so anything we can do to help improve the materials for the market is going to boost recovery, boost the economy and lead to more job growth as well.

The author is the editor for Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine and can be contacted at aredling@gie.net.