USGBC helps keep recycling viable during COVID-19

The Washington-based United States Green Building Council (USGBC), which oversees the (LEED) certification system, has included an accommodation to help keep C&D materials recycling credits on track during COVID-19 restrictions.

Richard Ludt, who is a board member of both the Illinois-based Construction and Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA) and the Los Angeles Chapter of USGBC, says he was part of a team from both organizations that worked to “make sure that LEED projects still get their diversion points, recovery facilities do not lose their business, and we continue to ensure the best diversion possible despite the pandemic.”

A number of people deserve credit for working together to create the temporary accommodation to keep the LEED materials recycling credit viable, says Ludt. He lists Brock Hill of Premier Recycle in San Jose, California; Ben Stapleton, the executive director of the USGBC Los Angeles Chapter; Wes Sullens a LEED director with USGBC; and William Turley, executive director of the CDRA.

Ludt, director of environmental affairs at South Gate, California-based Interior Removal Specialist Inc., is himself a LEED accredited professional (AP), and his company’s facility in South Gate was certified in 2015 to become eligible to offer the LEED points pertaining to materials recycling. Ludt says the South Gate facility “has been able to maintain our diversion [practices] during the pandemic; we are one of the lucky ones.”

In a series of LEED- and COVID-19-related questions and answers posted to the USGBC website in late March and updated on July 7, one question addresses the potential dilemma of recycling facilities being closed, or presumably not sorting in the same manner or at the same rate of speed they would ordinarily.

The answer provided by USGBC encourages project managers “to continue to divert materials and recycle to the greatest extent possible. Those materials that are able to be recycled and diverted shall be documented in the normal way as outlined in the Materials and Resources Construction and Demolition Waste Management credit.”

Continues USGBC, “However, we realize that circumstances may make recycling challenging for reasons outside a project team’s control during the global pandemic. Projects experiencing difficulty during this time shall continue to send materials to recycling facilities and either: (a) temporarily exclude the affected loads from credit calculations (still track the materials, even though they will not count toward overall project generation and diversion rates); or (b) use the waste processing facility’s average diversion rate reported prior to the pandemic. Diversion rates must be the facility average for at least the six months prior to the pandemic.”

Most states and federal agencies have recognized recycling facilities as essential, but access to facilities has not been uniform from state to state.