WasteCap Wisconsin Announces R3 Award Winners

WasteCap Wisconsin Inc., a private nonprofit organization that provides waste reduction and recycling assistance, has presented two companies with recycling awards. Two nationally-noted Big Diverter Awards were presented in October at the third annual WasteCap Wisconsin R3 Awards. Mortenson Construction, Minneapolis, and LaMacchia Group, Milwaukee, Wis., received the awards for achieving excellent recycling rates.

Mortenson Construction received the Big Diverter Award in the construction category for the new $189 million Aurora Medical Center in Summit. The project consists of the Aurora Medical Center and the Aurora Medical Office Building and Cancer Center and achieved a 94.4 percent project recycling rate.

Brad Folkert, Mortensons’ construction executive, credits the high recycling rate to WasteCap’s Senior Project Manager Ralph McCall. “Ralph was on site often, sat in on subcontractor meetings, trained staff on smart recycling procedures and kept track of recycling results. During Ralph’s site walks, he offered ways to improve our processes, such as more efficient placement of and easier access to the recycling bins.”

Folkert also gave credit to the 600 people on site every day for taking responsibility for the environment.

The LaMacchia Group received the Big Diverter Award in the demolition category for recycling and reusing 96.55 percent of the demolition debris from the office and retail complex in Milwaukee’s historic Third Ward. The original structure consisted of five interconnected buildings. LaMacchia removed two buildings that were added in the 1970s.

Accepting the award, Project Manager Corey Vincent said, “Working with John Lottes from WasteCap made it surprisingly easy for our project management team to manage, monitor, document and promote a successful recycling program throughout the demolition stage of our prospective LEED Gold project. This was our firm’s first project focusing on substantial recycling. Our success has proven—to not only the project team, but also to our entire company—that recycling isn’t a difficult practice to incorporate. Recycling actually saved costs and made the project much more successful overall.”

Big Diverter Awards were selected by awarding the highest recycling rates to date as of the end of June 2008.