Recyclers decry Washington rule - Industry News

C&D Recycler, March-April, 2003

The state of Washington has put in force a regulation that some fear will cause a substantial amount of demolition debris to be sent away from C&D recycling centers and toward landfills.

Rule 173-350 of the Washington Administrative Code bans building debris with lead-based paint on it above 0.06 percent by weight from being sorted and processed into a hog fuel.

According to William Turley, executive director of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), the best current technology to detect lead in a load of debris has a precision level of plus or minus 0.05 percent, so any detection means the material cannot be used for fuel.

Since this is the main market for that type of wood in the region, the result of the rule could be that virtually any load from a pre-1978 building has no other disposal option except going to a landfill.

The intentions were good on this rule, says one local recycler. The rule was created to remove stack emissions of lead at boilers. But critics of the rule say the trace amounts of lead left in the hog fuel stream were already being burned up in the stack anyway, so there were no harmful emissions.

According to Turley and CMRA sources in Washington, the only way to change the rule will be for the boiler operators to stand up before the legislature or regulatory board and say they are aware the material has lead in it, but that it is not a problem. This is viewed as unlikely.

C&D recyclers can still make alternative daily landfill cover (ADC) out of pre-1978 building debris. However, they still have to pay the landfill to use the material, and after processing costs, the economics for making ADC do not always pan out. It is usually cheaper just to send the loads directly to the landfill.

A demolition contractor in Washington says the rule has an added effect of raising lead to about the same level as asbestos, as least as far as reporting. "We have to give a contaminant inspection report to a processing center before we can dump material there, [just as with] asbestos he says.