Those who paid attention in math class early in life can have a leg up when it comes to hauling construction and demolition materials or the equipment needed to handle those materials. From calculating the weight of material or equipment to considering the geometry (camber angle) of a loaded trailer, precise calculations are essential for transport.

Safety considerations outweigh all others when it comes to ensuring loads are not too heavy or out of balance.

In addition to safety, there can be financial penalties involved when trucks deemed too heavy or otherwise out of compliance head out on public highways and roads before all necessary measures—and calculations—have been taken.

Built for the task

Among the problems that can befall contractors and their drivers when taking part in a major demolition, construction or road building project is using equipment that is too light duty for the job at hand.

Moving soil, sand or even uniform-sized gravel is commonly done with aluminum dump trailers. Those same trailers, however, may be less than ideal to handle the large chunks of concrete with rebar that are often generated at demolition sites.

The more metal in the rubble, the less likely an aluminum dump trailer is sufficient for hauling, says Greg Brown of Romulus, Michigan-based Benlee Inc. “Most demo guys use roll-off trailers and roll-off trucks, not dump trailers for demo [site] metal,” says Brown.

Cost is important also, says Brown. “Putting roll-off boxes that cost $6,000 at a site that can carry what a $50,000 [aluminum] trailer costs is a major savings for the demo guy,” he comments.

Brown says Benlee, like other companies, builds both roll-off containers and dump beds and trailers it markets as heavy duty to sell to those seeking durable equipment in either format.

Makers of hauling equipment say buyers need to shop responsibly for such heavy-duty supplies to ensure they are getting what they expect. “The definition of ‘heavy duty’ is in the eye of the beholder, as there is no industry standard for heavy-duty or extra-heavy-duty roll-off containers,” says Kirk Warren, director of product management in the steel division of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wastequip.

Despite no industry standard definition, Warren says investing in more durable containers is important. “Roll-off containers are revenue-producing assets provided they are in the field in use, and not in your yard awaiting repairs.”

Warren says his definition of what traits can be considered heavy duty in a roll-off container include a substructure with sturdy main rails, supporting cross members and thick sheet steel on the floor. The container’s sidewalls should include stout vertical bars and a top rail for reinforcement.

In addition to shopping for sturdiness because of the type of material that will be put in the container, Warren says buyers also should consider whether materials loaded inside will be distributed evenly or in the form of a concentrated load. The latter could put stress on certain parts of the container.

Also to be considered is what types of machinery will be loading and operating near the container. Large excavators, cranes or dozers can inadvertently cause structural damage to a less sturdy container all too easily.

A sturdy container will inevitably weigh more, which requires contractors to do the calculations pertaining to container and highway hauling aspects of the job.

Calculating the mass

Contractors and hauling firms become as knowledgeable about federal, state and local highway and street weight regulations as any segment of the population in the United States. Knowing the weight of a loaded truck or towed trailer has created a demand for scales and other measuring systems that serve the construction, demolition and road building industries. (See the sidebar “Avoiding a weight problem.”)

How much material by weight is going to or from a job site also contributes to knowing how many containers or trucks will be needed on a daily basis or throughout the course of a job. That is where more math comes into play, but there are resources out there that can help contractors, according to Warren.

“There are many demolition and material density calculators available to estimators to determine the correct size containers to use,” says Warren.

He continues, “Generally, the GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating, as determined by pertinent regulations) minus the weight of equipment (chassis, hoist and container) equals the maximum payload.” To determine that payload by volume, one needs to know the material density as measured by pounds per cubic yard, he adds.

As an example, Warren says if the pertinent equipment weighs 36,000 pounds and a 66,000 pound GSVR limit is in effect, then 30,000 pounds of material can be loaded.

In this example, if crushed concrete has a material density of 2,025 pounds per cubic yard, then 15 cubic yards is the approximate volume limit per loaded truck.

Concludes Warren, “So, for crushed concrete, the recommended container size would be a 20-cubic yard container filled only to 75 percent full.” In this example and others like it, he says, “Purchasing and placing the appropriate roll-off containers based on application yields the best return on investment.”

While hauling materials requires one set of formulas, the challenge of bringing off-road equipment to and from a job site introduces another set of considerations, according to a maker of specialized trailers.

A question of balance

Rensselaer, Indiana-based Talbert Manufacturing makes what it calls heavy-haul and specialized trailers most commonly used to transport equipment and components for the commercial, industrial, military and government sectors.

Troy Geisler, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, says in these applications, “load concentration” is a critical factor that can help buyers or renters make sure they have the correct trailer for the job.

“There is no one-size-fits-all [solution] when it comes to trailers,” states Geisler. “It’s not enough to know a 55-ton lowbed can carry 55 tons. Informed operators also know just how much of the deck can handle that weight based on the manufacturer’s capacity rating. While some trailers will need the entire deck length to haul 55 tons safely, a trailer from another manufacturer might only need half the deck length for the same weight.”

Calculating the best fit, says Geisler, is partly a matter of safety. “Having a trailer rated in half-deck capacity gives operators a more realistic indication of what the trailer will be able to handle safely and without structural failure,” he comments.

Compliance is another key factor, says Geisler, and it is not always an easy one to determine. “The intended area of operation is almost as important as capacity when selecting a trailer,” he remarks. “Dealers, manufacturers and industry associations, such as the Specialized Carrier and Rigging Association (SCRA), have a wealth of information on this subject that they are willing to share with operators and managers, but operators are encouraged to submit a configuration to states they plan to operate in to ensure proper permitting,” he adds.

The longevity of the trailer also can be at stake when it is overloaded, says Geisler. “A single overload might not cause the trailer to fail, but it reduces the manufacturer’s safety factors and puts unnecessary stress on the trailer components, putting it at risk of future failure.”

Off-road equipment is likely to have an uneven weight distribution, adding yet more factors into this specialty hauling equation. Geisler says Talbert is among the manufacturers who “designs with a two-point rigid load base that accounts for the tire spacing—or hot spots—of large equipment and heavy machinery. This makes trailers with a half-deck rating more versatile and efficient for these loads.”

Geometry comes into play when trailer makers and users consider the camber angle of the trailer. “Camber is the term used to describe the arc that forms in the center of a well-designed trailer,” says Geilser. “It helps prevent excessive deflection in the main beams. When properly loaded to capacity, the arc will flatten, resulting in the trailer’s loaded deck height. A top-tier manufacturer can adjust camber in custom designs to meet the operator’s specific needs. In general, though, a trailer that presents a slight upward arc in the center has positive camber which will flatten with a full load.”

Between considerations tied to safety, compliance and return on investment, companies shopping for trailers and containers have numerous reasons to do their homework.

The author is a senior editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net

Every demolition project comes with inherent risks. To help understand and mitigate these challenges, the National Demolition Association (NDA) created its Foundations of Demolition Risk Management course for industry professionals. Tim Barker, D4 program director at Los Angeles-based AECOM, helped devise the program and currently serves as one of its instructors.

C&DR: What types of risks does this class address?

Tim Barker (TB): The class focuses on commercial as well as technical risks. These risks can range from safety, environmental and public relations risks, to hedging against scrap price fluctuations, and so on. So, with commercial risk, we would talk about contracts and what type of risks contractors are taking on when they sign up for a job, whether that relates to a Hold Harmless agreement, indemnification or insurance issues and how they pass that risk down to their subcontractors and vendors or maybe negotiate some of that risk with the owners.

So, we talk about all those commercial risks, and then we spend the other half of the class talking about the technical risks. These are very high-level discussions because you have environmental risks, demolition risks, public relations risks, and we talk about all that at length.

C&DR: Who is this class for?

TB: We have demolition and abatement contractors, owners, engineers, architects—this class is really for everyone. For anyone involved in a large-scale decommissioning project, there’s going to be risk, and this course is going to be of great value to them in helping understand how to identify and manage that risk.

C&DR: How do you go about teaching contractors to rank and determine risk?

TB: The typical risk management approach incorporates what we call a risk register. Fundamentally, the objective of the risk management course is to teach contractors how to develop a risk register and get participants to think about all the various risks associated with a demolition project and how they’re going to mitigate them.

This risk register helps contractors examine individual risks and rank them on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, based upon both the probability and severity of that risk. And then you multiply the two numbers to help you determine what’s your greatest risk. Obviously, you want to spend a greater amount of time coming up with ways to mitigate the greatest risks. So, if a particular risk has a rank of 5 for probability and 5 for severity, you multiply those numbers together to get a score of 25, which means it is extremely high risk. Conversely, if something has a high probability of 5 but the severity is low and only ranks a 1 on the scale, it might be in the low-risk range.

You identify your risks and you color-code them red, yellow or green with the same meaning as a stop light. If the risk is in the red, let’s stop, let’s take a look at it and not move forward until we come up with some approaches to mitigate or manage that risk. If it’s yellow, we might not stop, but we’re going to pause our activity and we’re going to talk about the issue. If it’s green, we’re not going to completely ignore the issue, but we’re maybe not going to have a sit-down session to really evaluate it in great detail. Anything 7 and below is probably green. I say, “probably,” because there is some argument in the industry as to what constitutes risk in that yellow category, but I would say from 7 to 8 to around 18 is that medium risk that you want to talk about, and then anything above that is in the red category and merits immediate attention.

C&DR: How should companies go about discussing these risks?

TB: Risks, as we classify them, are different than work-site hazards. Hazards are something you identify on a job site that you see might be dangerous and you stop and take action right away. The risk register is a living document meant to evaluate a range of items. Risks that you’ve identified at the beginning of the project may remain until the end of the project. You may not be able to get a high-level red risk down to yellow, but you put some extra focus on it and you make sure that you manage that risk and that you revisit that risk register. Maybe if it’s pertaining to an on-site environmental risk issue, you’re evaluating this on a daily or weekly basis. If the risk relates to an off-site management issue, maybe it’s on a monthly basis. If you’re the general manager, maybe you sit down with your project managers and take a monthly or biweekly look at the risk registers. Often, owners will engage contractors to identify, assess and mitigate risk on their overall project risk register. Regardless, these are meant to be living documents that are continually evaluated. In the end, what gets focused on is what gets addressed, and that’s what this course is all about.

In 1933, Trinity Industries was founded as a Dallas-based manufacturer of small butane tanks. Over time, the company steadily expanded its offerings to serve the energy, chemical, agriculture, transportation and construction sectors.

In November 2018, Trinity spun off its infrastructure-related business into a separate entity, Arcosa Inc. The newly formed Dallas-based public company touts three divisions: Construction Products, Energy Equipment and Transportation Products.

While Arcosa Inc. might be a newer name in the industry, its history of producing construction products dates back to the early 1990s when Trinity Industries Inc. began expanding its operations in Texas.

Today, the company’s construction materials portfolio includes natural aggregates, recycled aggregates and specialty materials such as natural sand, gravel and limestone base. These operations are run out of more than 11 locations. The company also is one of the largest producers of rotary kiln expanded shale and clay lightweight aggregate in North America, with production facilities in California, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana and Arkansas.

According to Reid Essl, president of Arcosa Construction Products, these products serve a diverse range of customers and building projects, with most going to infrastructure-based initiatives.

“We estimate that roughly half of our end markets are related to infrastructure, with the other half split across residential, non-residential and specialty markets,” he says.

At the end of 2019, the company operated 23 quarries and 14 specialty materials production facilities across North America. More than half of these quarries were in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, and the company also featured operations in nine other states and British Columbia. Additionally, the company touts a Construction Site Support division based in Michigan with five facilities.

To facilitate all these operations, Arcosa boasted an employee base of 6,200, including 1,200 in the Construction Products group at the end of last year.

The Cherry on top

Despite Arcosa’s robust network and customer base, Essl says the company wanted to expand its offerings even more in the recycled aggregates market.

In January, Arcosa made major inroads in this endeavor when it announced that it had completed the acquisition of Houston-based Cherry Industries Inc. and its affiliated entities for $298 million. This acquisition yielded 12 Houston area locations and added roughly 300 more employees to the company’s workforce.

“We are very excited about this acquisition,” Arcosa President and CEO Antonio Carrillo said upon the announcement of the deal. “The transaction is aligned with our strategic plan, accelerating the growth of our high-value Construction Products segment and enhancing our geographic position within Texas. Cherry’s unique platform will provide additional organic and acquisition growth opportunities in Houston and adjacent markets in Texas and the Gulf Coast. Cherry’s unique business model of offering aggregates in combination with recycled aggregates represents an opportunity for Arcosa to replicate in other regions. … Cherry is the largest recycled aggregates company in the country, and we look forward to building on Cherry’s leadership position.”

Essl notes that the company’s interest in growing in Texas and the Gulf Coast can be attributed to Arcosa’s current operations in these areas and the attractive positive private and public demand drivers in the region.

“Texas and Gulf Coast states continue to experience population growth, public infrastructure spending and corporate relocations,” he says. “However, we are also looking to expand in other geographies that have similarly attractive market characteristics. We currently have quarry operations in 11 states, and those other operations could serve as a foothold from which to grow.”

Essl says that the Cherry acquisition was facilitated by the leadership at Norman, Oklahoma-based ACG Materials, which Arcosa also acquired for roughly $315 million in 2018.

“The team at ACG Materials, who we became familiar with after we acquired the company in December 2018, introduced us to the Cherry leadership team, and we quickly realized the strategic fit of the business with Arcosa’s platform. … We are confident in the long-term fundamentals of infrastructure spending in Texas, driven by population growth, strong fiscal health and major highway investments throughout the state,” Essl says.

In 2019, prior to the Cherry acquisition, Arcosa’s natural aggregates and specialty materials businesses combined to produce approximately 16 million tons. The Cherry business added roughly 6 million tons of production. Essl says each of the company’s locations uses various crushing and screening assets to produce the variety of aggregate products it offers, and that Arcosa will continue to invest in crushing and processing equipment across its portfolio to optimize its volumes and grow its business.

Besides investing in its equipment and processes to help increase its profitability, Essl says M&A continues to be a priority for accelerating Arcosa’s growth.

Essl says that building through M&A has been a critical part of Arcosa’s strategy and has helped substantially bolster the revenues of its Construction Products division over the last decade.

“We’ve been very active in acquiring companies in the Construction Products space because of the attractive industry fundamentals,” he says. “In fact, we have grown our combined construction aggregates and specialty materials revenues from $65 million in 2012 to over $545 million in 2019, including [with the] Cherry acquisition. Just in the last 18 months, we’ve completed the two major acquisitions [with ACG and Cherry] and three smaller complementary acquisitions. We plan to continue to be active in the M&A market to acquire new businesses in the natural aggregates, recycled aggregates and specialty materials industries.”

Beyond M&A, Essl says the company has had success growing organically by focusing on serving its customers throughout the regions in which it operates.

“We’ve had success growing organically through greenfield plants and capacity expansions that serve unmet customer needs,” he says. “For example, we largely built our presence in North Texas buying raw land with attractive aggregate reserve positions that served unmet needs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Similarly, Cherry has expanded organically by adding new facilities across Houston as their customers required recycled aggregates in new geographies. Maintaining and building on this customer focus will be an important part of our organic growth in the future.”

Pushing recycling

Essl says that beyond the core fundamentals of ACG and Cherry, being able to further establish Arcosa as a supplier of recycled aggregates made these attractive deals for the company. He says that as resource scarcity and various environmental, social and governance (ESG) benefits continue to make the use of these recycled materials more appealing, the company hopes to capitalize on new opportunities. Additionally, he says that increased product acceptance of recycled aggregates by departments of transportation (DOTs) across the country could lead to continued opportunities in the coming years.

“Infrastructure in metropolitan areas across the United States continues to age as most city construction phases have spanned decades,” he says. “As populations grow, this infrastructure needs to be replaced and expanded. Crushing and recycling of concrete provides an aggregate source closer to city centers, lessening transportation costs and reducing the amount of materials going into landfills.”

“Recycled aggregate production has evolved over the years to include stabilized materials that meet certain express specifications,” Essl continues. “This advancement has allowed recycled aggregates to be used in an increasing number of project designs. We expect this trend to continue and industry participants will continue to work with engineers and state DOTs to broaden recycled aggregate product applications.”

Although recycled aggregates can be an economical and environmentally conscious alternative to virgin materials, Essl says that the company works diligently to try to promote these benefits to the larger building community.

He says that Arcosa employs a group of industry experts in its Construction Products division to sit on specification committees and participate in industry trade organizations to help advocate for the use of these materials. These experts also work to educate project decision-makers on material applications and the ESG benefits of recycled aggregates.

Vision for the future

Thanks in large part to the acquisition of Cherry Industries, Arcosa’s revenues increased 41 percent to $149.4 million in the first quarter.

“Our first quarter results demonstrate Arcosa’s outstanding earnings power when infrastructure markets are strong. Our Construction Products businesses had an excellent quarter, with the Cherry acquisition exceeding our expectations,” Carrillo said via the company’s first quarter earnings report.

And even though the company has made significant progress in expanding its market reach within its first couple years as its own entity, it remains poised to keep building on its early growth, Essl says.

“We have laid out four pillars of our long-term vision: Grow in attractive markets, reduce the cyclicality of our business, improve our returns on invested capital and integrate ESG initiatives into our long-term strategy. We believe the Cherry acquisition and the others that we’ve made will advance all four parts of that vision, and we’re excited to continue to pursue that vision with our new businesses.”

The author is the editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and can be reached at aredling@gie.net.

Since opening in 2007, Devens Recycling, Devens, Massachusetts, has become an acquisition target for construction and demolition (C&D) waste processors looking to expand into the New England market.

Operating on 11 acres on the site of the former Fort Devens military base, the over 100,000-square-foot C&D recycling and waste transfer facility was once described as “the largest fully enclosed state-of-the-art construction and demolition transfer station” in the U.S. by the MetroWest Daily News in 2009.

After building its footprint organically in the Massachusetts market, Devens’ co-owner Kurt Macnamara sought to test the interest in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity with possible interested parties.

“We could only take it so far without either acquiring some smaller assets, or having to be acquired by someone else,” Macnamara says. “I really wanted [to sell Devens to] a company that was 100 percent committed to C&D recycling.”

Although the facility attracted multiple interested parties, Macnamara decided to partner with Phoenix-based Republic Services in an acquisition that was finalized in February.

MAKING A DEAL

“We [already] had a relationship with [Republic] because they were one of our customers, and then it just kept growing,” Macnamara says. “I started talking to Nick [Stefkovich, Republic’s market vice president for operations in New England and upstate New York,] a couple years ago and he coached me on getting [the company] to a certain point where they might consider acquiring it.”

According to Stefkovich, Devens was a good acquisition target for two reasons: it had the ability to transfer material to distant locations via its rail access thanks to its status as the largest operational rail transfer facility in Massachusetts, and it had the ability be a prolific processor in the Massachusetts construction debris market.

“We needed the ability to move material, but it’s not uncommon for alternative disposal capacity in states [to] be unavailable. As a collector, and with many C&D facilities in the market already full, it was better to be an owner and operator than a customer. [With Devens], we know that we now can support our collection operations,” he says.

Space for waste disposal is currently a growing concern in Massachusetts, with the state’s projected disposal capacity expected to shrink from 5.2 million tons in 2017 to 4.6 million tons this year, as reported by the Telegram & Gazette.

In addition to the state’s strained disposal capacity, Stefkovich says Massachusetts’ strict regulatory framework for C&D processing was also a primary driver in Republic’s acquisition.

“[The state] requires all of the material that comes from construction sites to go through a processing system and certain materials are required to be extracted,” he says.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) introduced its first waste bans on landfilling and combustion of easy-to-recycle and toxic materials in 1990. In 2006, MassDEP added multiple C&D categories to the list, including asphalt pavement, ferrous and nonferrous metal, treated and untreated wood, clean gypsum wallboard, and more.

Most recently, the state established a 15 percent process separation rate requirement for C&D facilities this year, prompting a possible increase in demand for C&D recycling.

“[The regulations] give us—the processor—some certainty around volumes. We’re able to build some confidence that we’re going to have the volumes we need to run the facility. I would think the regulatory framework really helps support the New England market,” Stefkovich says.

THE FACILITY

Devens, which is currently permitted to accept up to 1,000 tons of C&D and 500 tons of MSW via truck and rail, has already met the 15 percent threshold per the state’s latest data. But, depending on how Republic chooses to utilize the site, it’s possible the company could pursue a higher overall capacity cap.

According to a 2019 study conducted by the Orlando, Florida-based MSW Consultants for MassDEP, C&D makes up a notable portion of out-of-state waste shipments. This is especially notable for Republic, as the Devens facility has direct rail access.

With Devens located in close proximity to a Pan Am Class 2 railway, Republic will now be able to shift material from its local collection and transfer operations to many of its company-owned landfills in other states, as well as to outbound customers.

“I think it’s an asset because if we need rail service, they’re a stone throw away. It’s not a big production to get a switch,” says Stefkovich.

As reported by the MetroWest Daily News, Devens’ clientele includes major universities and developers in Massachusetts, as well as companies like Kennedy Concrete, Vineland, New Jersey, and Excel Recycling LLC, Freetown, Massachusetts, whom receive the facility’s metal and concrete.

To process material at a rate of 35 tons per hour, Devens currently utilizes an OEM Sherbrooke C&D processing system, a General Kinematics destoner, a Peterson grinder and a Terex wheel loader, among other specialty equipment.

“The financial commitment to recycling construction and demolition materials is huge. There are tens of millions of dollars of equipment in there to support that process,” says Macnamara.

MOVING FORWARD

Of Devens 30 employees, all have remained at the company following the acquisition.

“[Republic] has been a great partner,” says Macnamara. “I’m still working there and [am] still very much involved, and Nick has been a great guy to work with—the whole company has.”

Stefkovich adds, “Obviously, there’s a period of time where people adjust to a new company and a new culture. But I’ve been with [Republic] for 22 years and we treat people well and support them. If you approach management of people from a place of respect, you can build good rapport and get things done.”

Since beginning operations on Feb. 1, Stefkovich says Republic has been taking a step-by-step approach to managing the facility. With no immediate equipment changes in the queue, Republic plans to operate and run the system for a period to better understand it before deciding on any changes.

“The whole idea behind [Devens made it] one of the first of its kind in Massachusetts,” says Macnamara. “It was basically large enough so it was like an indoor landfill. This facility fills such a need with the lack of space now at these landfills, and we have the technology to recycle this incoming stuff and make something out of it.”

He adds, “And that’s Republic’s mission—they are 100 percent committed to recycling and improving the quality of their recycled materials. I’d like to think Devens really was a piece that they could plug into their system and make the company thrive.”

Given the company’s work building Devens into one of the largest operators in the region, Macnamara says he is excited it is in good hands.

“[Republic] is definitely committed to the mission of recycling more and more construction and demolition material. So, I’m pretty excited that I was able to get them interested in acquiring Devens. It’s not every day you get a Fortune 500 company interested in your business,” he says.

The author is the assistant editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and can be reached at hrischar@gie.net.