King County, Wash., actively promotes the virtues of C&D recycling, starting with re-use.

While the estimated recycling rate for construction debris is 30 to 40 percent, the salvage and reuse rate for building materials is harder to target. There are strong markets for salvaged concrete, asphalt, brick and rock, and lumber and timber; residential architectural features such as staircases and moldings have always enjoyed high demand. Several private concerns handle these markets: Three large specialized retail stores accept materials from commercial contractors and the general public, and several demolition contractors operate retail re-sale yards for salvaged materials.

With the new construction waste plan in place, and facing unprecedented building activity, in 1993 King County began educating the building industry about recycling and reusing building materials. The program has since grown from one part-time employee offering limited technical assistance to a full technical assistance and recognition program with two full-time employees.

It is important to note that the region has a strong private-sector infrastructure for recycling construction materials. Private C&D companies collect and process virtually all construction recyclables. The most economical to handle are: clean wood, some painted and treated wood and laminates, brush from land clearing, metals (ferrous and non-ferrous), gypsum drywall, asphalt roofing (non-asbestos 3-tab and built-up roofing) and concrete/asphalt/rock and brick. Recycling costs for other materials (carpet, acoustical ceiling tile) are increasingly competitive with disposal rates. One way King County promotes private recyclers can be found on the Web with the "Seattle/King County Construction Recycling Directory": http://dnr.metrokc.gov/swd/bizprog/sus_build/CDLguide.pdf (the directory is also available in hard copy).

The county’s early involvement has helped spur several high-profile C&D recycling efforts, including some attached to construction projects on the Microsoft campus that have resulted in more than 2,500 tons of C&D material being recycled there, and a Boeing project that saw more than 6,500 tons of material recycled.

Technical information about recycling is combined with extensive education and outreach to the construction industry. In northwest Washington, the success of construction recycling hinges on two factors: Recycling must remain voluntary rather than mandatory; and the marketplace must determine the economic viability of recycling without direct subsidies from King County government.

Since King County provides no subsidies, and delegates collection and manufacturing services to private vendors, CDL program staff members focus on creating incentives for construction companies to recycle their waste and to build with salvaged and recycled-content materials.

Fortunately, job site recycling in the region makes clear economic sense. The cost to dump construction materials averages $85.00/ton, whereas recycling costs anywhere from free to $55/ton—a real incentive to recycle.

In 1996-97, King County took a leadership role in testing job-site recycling at the state’s largest construction project, a criminal justice center including a courthouse, jail, and administrative offices. Able for the first time to require large-scale job-site recycling through a construction contract, the county encountered and overcame many of the barriers that contractors perceived about recycling.

An education campaign needed to be created that reached a broad spectrum of construction company owners, project managers, job-site supervisors, and labor crews from different trades.

Construction recycling is promoted through several avenues. All local licensed contractors receive quarterly mailings, in which particular companies’ job-site successes are recognized and technical assistance information is provided. The radio and print advertising the county purchases also recognizes Construction Works members (a membership benefit). The Construction Works program also displays at booths set up at public fairs and shows.

By leveraging those relationships, access was gained to the trade association, an important step in expanding an audience and garnering industry endorsement for recycling and for "green building" in general.

The program was up against a common belief that job site recycling would raise labor costs because it requires separating and sorting material into containers. By disseminating the case study results through the trade organizations, we showed that recycling cost savings offset the rare, negligible bump in labor costs. The major trade groups have subsequently established policies supporting construction site recycling.