C & D News

Sports team owners have been demanding-and getting-new stadiums and arenas in record numbers in recent years. Along with the new venues has come nearly an equal number of major demolition jobs.

The most recent stadium to face the wrecking ball is Milwaukee’s County Stadium. The demolition of the former home of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team started in mid-January. The project is in the hands of a demolition contractor aiming to down the external structure. Parts of the seating and other items considered memorabilia had lready been removed.

According to Les Gumbiner, general manager of Midwerecycle as much of the concrete and steel as possible.

The company that will be doing the demolition work, Midwest Rail & Dismantling, Milwaukee, has begun the work of atearing st Rail & Dismantling, the demolition work is expected to be complete by April 1.

The heavy demolition work began January 24th, Gumbiner said. “Over the next four weeks the rest of the structure should be torn down,” he indicated in mid-January.

By the time the stadium is totally demolished, and before the Brewers begin play at their adjacent new stadium, Miller Park, it is expected around 2,000 truckloads of recyclable debris will be removed.

It is estimated that around 30,000 tons of the old stadium’s concrete will be crushed on site and used as infill at areas surrounding the new stadium.

In all, recycling of the concrete will save about $1.2 million. The stadium district budgeted $2 million for the demolition, but will only pay $800,000.

Miller Compressing Co., a Milwaukee-based scrap metal company, will be purchasing the ferrous metals extracted from the facility.

CMRA, SWANA TO DEVELOP C&D PROGRAM

The Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), Lisle, Ill., and the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), Silver Spring, Md., have chosen Timothy Townsend to develop the new training and certification program for handling, recycling and disposing of construction waste and demolition debris.

Townsend is an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences.

He has been the principal or co-principal investigator on 20 extramural funded research grants related to C&D management. He has also authored 30 publications on the subject.

In October of 2000, SWANA and CMRA announced plans to jointly implement a training course and certification exam for managers of C&D waste operations.

The program is planned for a roll out during the SWANA Training Center event, July 16-19, 2001, in Salt Lake City.