California C&D Landfills Ask for False Recycling Front

The California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB), Sacramento, is reportedly developing new regulations for inert landfills that recyclers say will allow the landfills to put on a false recycling front.

C&D recycling advocates such as Stephen Bantillo, chair of the Construction & Demolition Council of the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) and board member of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), says the waste industry is lobbying heavily to drop the words “disposed,” “disposal” and “waste” from the definitions and other relevant sections of the proposed regulations for inert materials.

The logic of the argument rests on using C&D debris to fill existing dumps with the goal of selling the filled-in land for redevelopment. By categorizing this as not dumping but recycling, the landfill owners and generators of the material will not have to pay host fees and will be able to count the material toward state-mandated recycling goals.

Legitimate concrete recyclers in the area could be hurt because the dump sites could then compete for material that offers a recycling incentive, thus steering material away from their crushing and screening facilities.

In a letter written to the CIWMB, Bantillo writes: “The disposal industry representatives want us to believe that keeping the ‘dispose’ words in the Proposed Regulations may cause them financial hardships in Southern California due to fees that may apply to disposed materials and materials hauled out of town from transfer facilities. To be clear, this regulatory package is about disposal facilities and the activities that occur there, hence the title of Article 5.95, “Construction and Demolition Waste and Inert Debris Disposal Regulatory Requirements.” If the final resting place of materials is a disposal facility and not the ‘economic mainstream’ as defined in Section 17388, Definitions, sub(s) of the Proposed Regulations, then should the materials be deemed disposed [of] and not count as recycling?

“The Legislature took a swing at this issue with AB 2308 and came up short. But, the bill did provide an opportunity for the CIWMB to set the record straight, which is the request of the Construction & Demolition Council.

“Please keep the words ‘disposed,’ ‘disposal’ and ‘waste’ in the Proposed Regulations so as not to remove viable materials from the economic mainstream and put recyclers at a greater competitive disadvantage.”