Sustainable means maintaining the loop

Construction & Demolition Recycling, Jan-Feb, 2004

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) conference and expo in Pittsburgh to learn more about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program and the role recycling and re-use plays in the overall LEED program. For those unfamiliar with LEED and USGBC, the latter has developed and continues to modify the former as a vehicle to certify a building has been built "green," that is to say, highly energy efficient; with a preference toward recycled-content building materials; and with a construction waste management program in place, among many other criteria. It's all based on points. The more of the criteria a building project meets, the more points it gets toward different levels of LEED certification.

Because LEED awards points for a construction waste management plan that requires recycling and re-use of construction and demolition materials, it is a great program. Some observers, though, think the construction waste segment of LEED can be upgraded from where it stands now, with several LEED insiders acknowledging that the section could be improved.

That said, it was very interesting to tour the large exhibition area that was a part of the conference. A large assortment of services and products to serve contractors out to score LEED points was on display. Building materials on display were of particular interest, but some of them raised an intriguing question: How the heck were recyclers supposed to handle some of these objects at the end of their useful lives? For example, a multi-function roofing system with a "substantial" recycled content of re-used paper was considered a green product, yet some of the items in the product line had vinyl coatings laminated to it. Another part of the product line had a foam core and a bottom face of black, glass-reinforced felt. How anyone is ever going to recycle such products without tremendous labor expenditure is beyond me.

Concrete can be considered a very environmentally friendly material and we all know it is eminently recyclable. But on display at a couple of booths at the convention were insulating concrete form (ICF) systems made basically out of polystyrene that is left in place after the concrete is poured. So I asked one salesperson what happens during demolition of a building with that polystyrene in the concrete, and he said that it all just mixed together. When informed that a concrete recycler could in no way make a spec product with all that polystyrene in it, he did say that the demolition contractor could go in beforehand and strip out all the ICF. Of course, that will add to the cost of the demolition, making the total cost of recycling potentially prohibitive.

Indeed, I asked several of the salespeople in the different booths with their different products a direct question: "How are we supposed to be able to recycle that?" Some danced around the question and sure didn't like me asking it; others replied they had no idea how (nor apparently cared); and the smart ones said, "We're working on that." Indeed, under LEED a product gains points by having a high recycled content percentage, and for some of these materials the recycling industry can use all the support it can get for end markets. But a truly green product must be able to be recycled at the end of its life cycle, and USGBC and LEED need to take that into consideration when certifying a product as "green." Otherwise, it needs to be labeled as "landfill."