C&D World: Green Labeling Opens Doors

The green building movement, focused partly on saving energy but also on resource conservation, is helping to develop end markets for some C&D materials.

In a session at C&D World 2009, held March 22-24 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., two recyclers detailed how their company has been able to tie into green building and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) procedures.

Rob Dorinson of Evergreen Recycling, Las Vegas, said that in terms of contractors involved in LEED projects, “It’s all about diversion.”

The number of contractors undertaking LEED projects has grown significantly in Las Vegas, said Dorinson, noting that that the companies involved in United States Green Building Council (USGBC) meetings in that city has grown from 9 to about 250.

Evergreen has taken advantage of this by tailoring its roll-off container service at construction and demolition sites to meet LEED standards, including filling out appropriate forms and “scorecards.”

For difficult to recycle materials, such as gypsum wallboard, Evergreen has worked with a local wallboard manufacturing plant to produce an acceptable recycled material that can be used in the company’s manufacturing process.

Evergreen’s experience gained at sorting and processing materials has given it the confidence to enter new markets and into wider materials recycling beyond what is generate at C&D sites.

In Pennsylvania, Terry Weaver and USA Gypsum, Reinholds, Pa., is processing and marketing gypsum wallboard scrap and cut-offs throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

Weaver says the company serves job-sites by spotting roll-off containers and also accepts material from mixed C&D recyclers who can sort appropriately.

The company’s primary end markets are with farmers who use the gypsum as a soil additive or as animal bedding for livestock (the paper portion of the stream can also be used in the animal bedding application). Golf courses are also showing interest in applying gypsum to their soil to help reduce salt levels.

In part thanks to LEED requirements, Weaver, USA Gypsum’s president, says, “I think there is a future to adding value to [scrap] gypsum wallboard.”