New Hampshire Bans Burning of C&D Debris

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch has signed a law permanently panning the burning of construction and demolition debris in the state.

The ban will take effect on Jan 1, 2008, replacing a moratorium on burning the material that expires Dec. 31.

William Turley, executive director of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), has said the ban could slam the door shut on an important market for recycled C&D debris in New England. “Currently, there are no wood fuel power plants, except for some that use residues from the logging industry, in New Hampshire, so there is nobody using C&D wood fuel now in the state, although a couple such facilities have been proposed,” he said in an earlier news report. “We might see these ideas that C&D wood is in some way unsafe spread to other states, and we don’t want this untrue concept to take hold.”

The CMRA through its Issues & Education Fund has been working with the University of New Hampshire on research to present to the state government that would provide evidence that C&D wood can be material can be used as wood fuel with comparable environmental impacts to other fuel products.