Indiana Partnership Targets Shingles

Upstate Recycling, a Fort Wayne, Ind., metals recycling company, has introduced a new program in the Fort Wayne area to recycle asphalt roofing shingles. The company held a grand opening ceremony in early November to commemorate its move into asphalt shingle recycling.

Upstate Recycling says it is working with two companies—Owens Corning Roofing and Asphalt and Heritage Environmental Services—to divert asphalt shingles from landfills.

The opening of the recycling program makes Fort Wayne the sixth U.S. city to work with Owens Corning on its “recycle roofing for road pavement” program. Other cities taking part in the Owens Corning and Heritage program are Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Marty Henry, president of Upstate Recycling, says that Upstate will take in the shingles from contractors and individuals rather than having the material sent to a landfill. In addition to encouraging its customers to take part in the recycling program, Owens Corning Roofing also will be providing a number of incentives to its customers.

Henry notes that while Upstate traditionally has been a metals recycling company, when the company acquired a trucking firm, it ended up hauling asphalt shingles from construction sites to landfills. The company opted to work on a program that could redirect the shingles away from the landfill to be recycled and processed into a viable raw material.

Once enough material is collected, Heritage Environmental will bring its grinder to Upstate’s site, where the shingles will be ground up and sold to road paving companies.

Henry estimates that the cost benefit for the contractor of delivering the material to Upstate’s site rather than land-filling is around $20 per ton. With the average roof using around three tons of asphalt shingles, a contractor could save $60 per roof.