Tearing Down to Build Up: Recycled and reclaimed construction and demolition materials.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: CONSTRUCTION

According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Environmental Health, the state contains more than 215 municipal landfills and more than 115 waste storage, treatment, and disposal facilities. While many communities have embraced recycling at a household level, what happens to the massive amount of debris that results from construction demolition projects?

The state faces many challenges when dealing with this issue, ranging from a lack of infrastructure to the difficulty in recycling waste from remote communities. Distance to market, economy of scale, and a lack of infrastructure have also contributed to the fact that it has taken longer for the 49th State to buy into the benefits of recycling and reclamation on a larger level--but happily, this attitude seems to be changing.

Central Recycling Services (CRS), for example, is already realizing the benefits of reclaiming materials retrieved from construction demolition projects. And end-users such as Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility (AWWU) are discovering cost-savings and efficiencies from using the aggregates created from recycled materials.

CRS is an offshoot of Central Environmental, Inc. (CEI), which has been serving Alaska since 1984. CEI provides comprehensive services to its clients, including engineering design, construction, environmental sampling, remediation, demolition, recycling, and waste disposal.

"In 2007, CEI was the contractor for the demolition of Clark Middle School, and it was requested by the architect, general contractor, and the Anchorage School District that construction and demolition debris be diverted from the landfill as part of LEED certification," explains Donna Mears, PE, environmental engineer at CEI. "As we began segregating the different waste streams, we realized that it wasn't as hard as we had expected.

"At the same time, the Municipality of Anchorage was reassessing landfill tipping fees, which hadn't been changed since 1987," she continues. "We looked at the cost of recycling versus the increased cost of tipping fees and realized that it was possible to make this form of recycling work."

CRS, which has a recycling facility on Railroad Avenue in Anchorage, was developed to recycle and reclaim construction and demolition materials. In the Anchorage area alone it is estimated that these materials comprise 20 percent to 30 percent of Anchorage's waste stream. CEI is a CRS customer, as are the military and private sector contractors looking to reclaim materials from demolition projects...