CMRA granted shingle recycling funding

Construction & Demolition Recycling, July-August, 2005

* The Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) will receive a $74,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to examine the barriers to the recycling of tear-off asphalt shingles.

The CMRA is hopeful that the project will accelerate the national development and implementation of tear-off asphalt shingle recycling. (Tear-off shingles are those removed from existing structures.) The project partners will attempt to address the key barriers to reaching full-scale commercialization of this promising technology.

The primary goal is to develop and demonstrate recommended best practices that provide for superior quality assurance/ quality control (QA / QC) that can be utilized by profitable shingle recycling operators throughout the nation. The project has three principal objectives, according to the CMRA:

* Demonstrate successful and appropriate environmental / worker health protection procedures;

* Document materials engineering benefits and methods of QA/QC to optimize their pavement performance effects; and,

* Develop operational guidelines that maximize cost-efficiency while attaining minimum environmental, worker health and safety, and engineering standards.

"Asphalt shingle recycling is a growing, dynamic, and environmentally friendly industry that promises to divert millions of tons of materials from landfills while providing businesses an opportunity to make a profit and employ people," says William Turley, executive director of the CMRA.

He adds that the technology for recycling asphalt shingles as a supplement into hot-mix asphalt (HMA) for road construction and other pavement is well proven, especially when manufacturers' shingle scrap is utilized. Nationwide acceptance and commercialization of recycling tear-off (or post-consumer) asphalt shingles is much less developed. But a steady increase in cost and price of virgin asphalt is driving the interest in recycled supplements.

Much of the manufacturer shingle scrap, a more premium grade of post-industrial material, is already being used in recycling applications. In the case of Minnesota, two of the three shingle manufacturing plants already have full recycling programs, representing 87 percent of the total 30,500 tons per year of manufacturer scrap available. The third manufacturing plant will likely soon be recycling its material as well.

Shingle recycling advocates contend that a lack of shingle scrap supply is impeding further market development. The theoretical capacity for recycled asphalt shingle (RAS) use based on demand from all HMA plants in Minnesota (at 5 percent by weight of total product) is 650,000 tons per year. Tear-off scrap, which is currently being landfilled in Minnesota, is estimated at 400,000 tons per year.

"This project will build directly on the substantial efforts of other research and development efforts in order to help bring tear-off shingle recycling technology to full-scale implementation," says Turley.

For more information about the project, the CMRA can be contacted at (630) 585-7530 or at info@cdrecycling.org.

Additional information on asphalt shingle recycling can also be found in the feature article authored by recycling consultant Dan Krivit beginning on page 24 of this issue of Construction &Demolition Recycling magazine.