CMRA Honors Recyclers

Jim O'Neill, Rick Givan and Dan Copp of Dan Copp Crushing, Anaheim, Calif.

At is recent Annual Meeting in Miami, the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) handed out its 2006 awards for excellence in construction and demolition recycling. The awards included Concrete/Asphalt Recycler of the Year, Mixed C&D Recycler of the Year, Government Recycling Program of the Year and C&D Recycler of the Year.

Byron Lord of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), was named C&D Recycler of the Year. Within FHWA, Lord was a catalyst for that agency’s acceptance and promotion of the use of recycled materials in the highway environment. He credits many academics that did the initial research to show these materials would work.

Also, he was fearless in promoting recycled concrete and asphalt out in the marketplace, according to William Turley, the CMRA’s executive director and the associate publisher of Construction & Demolition Recycling. Lord became an advocate for the use of recycled materials and extolled their virtues to producers of natural aggregate, encouraging them to get involved in recycling as a market opportunity.

The CMRA’s Concrete/Asphalt Recycler of the Year is Dan Copp Crushing, which has been recycling those materials since 1970 in one of the most active recycled aggregates market in North America, Southern California. Since then, Dan Copp Crushing has grown to No. 5 on Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine’s list of Top 20 concrete and asphalt recyclers. But size isn’t everything. The Anaheim, Calif.-based company has also shown leadership both in the recycling yard and out in the community.

Currently the company operates 12 recycling yards, four associate yards and six portable crushing plants, producing about 2 million tons of recycled aggregates and nearly 3 million tons of product in all. In addition, Dan Copp Crushing makes sure it is a good neighbor in heavily urbanized Southern California by beautification of the curbside view of its facilities and the use of water trucks and sprinklers to dissipate fugitive dust before it effects the neighbors. Sprinkler systems are used on the crushing plants, and rumble grates and asphalt paving are in place to prevent unwanted dirt and dust from leaving the premises.

As the use of recycled aggregates has grown in Southern California, so has Dan Copp Crushing. Dan Copp was instrumental in overcoming a major barrier some recycled materials suppliers face in other states. He was able to secure a letter from the chief engineer for Caltrans pavement branch that stated “recycled base product, with small amounts of deleterious in it, can be accepted without compromising the material’s ability to structurally perform the task it was designed for.” Because of that letter, several projects in that area have used recycled aggregates as their base material, including freeway projects, to the benefit of many asphalt and concrete recyclers.

The company has also been very supportive of the CMRA’s legislative agenda in the state, designating part of one employee’s time to perform advocacy efforts in the state capital of Sacramento. Dan Copp Crushing has realized that by promoting the entire industry in its state through legislative and regulatory actions, its revenues will

Rick Givan and Gerald Jonhstone, of Horry County SWA

The winner of the CMRA’s Mixed C&D Recycler of the Year award is also based in Southern California and was an honorable mention in last year’s award competition. Since then Downtown Diversion has maintained its certified 76 percent recycling rate, the highest among the 10 recycling facilities certified by the city of Los Angeles.

The state-of-the-art facility takes in mixed C&D and separates the material into clean concrete and asphalt to send to another recycling facility. Scrap metal, wire and cable are marketed to local scrap dealers, while wood and green materials are ground on site for both the mulch and biomass markets. ADC is only about 10 percent of its total production. In addition, clean drywall is processed for agricultural use.

By keeping all of its operations under roof, Downtown Diversion is also a good neighbor. It has to be, since the facility is located centrally in Los Angeles, while most other disposal options are much farther away and usually have longer waiting times to dump. The tipping area is also under roof, which reduces airborne debris and noise, and the entire site has a misting system that mitigates dust, which decreases air pollution and improves air quality for employees. By being so close to where the construction action is opposed to the far away landfills, truck emissions are reduced in smoggy LA. Because its tipping fees are competitive and because of its recycling rate of more than 75 percent, Downtown Diversion is key to any construction project trying to earn LEED points in an economical manner. It also works with local school districts of all levels to meet their recycling needs required under California law.

The Horry County Solid Waste Authority won the award for Best Government Recycling Program. Besides owning the local landfill, Horry County SWA also operates a lot of the equipment to recycle the C&D that goes into the site.

The authority is a quasi-governmental agency based in Conway, S.C., near Myrtle Beach. It has separate areas for MSW and C&D debris. After starting off years ago with tire recycling, the agency began a composting facility where the wood is separated into three categories—yard waste, land clearing, and clean C&D. A horizontal grinder processes 30,000 tons of wood per year and the authority has the other equipment needed to make a finished compost product. It also has a chipper to make mulch out of another 6,000 tons of land clearing debris.

Other materials that the Horry County Solid Waste Authority accepts include metals, OCC, asphalt shingles and concrete. The latter two are ground up and crushed respectively to provide temporary roads at the landfill face, and for the last 10 years the facility has not had to buy outside materials for that job.

The 2007 CMRA Awards will be handed out at the association’s Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 14-17. For more information about the awards, contact the CMRA at (630) 585-7530; info@cdrecycling.org.