Industry News

Martz hopes to start putting together the facility as soon as possible, with an anticipated completion date by this summer.

A number of the backers of the company are involved in the construction industry currently and have a good deal of the expertise needed to plan and set up the operation, according to Martz.

Martz says the plan is to recycle the concrete back into material that can be used by road construction firms.

The facility will be located in an area zoned for heavy industrial land use. According to the Flint (Mich.) Journal, the facility will only operate when it has enough material to make operating the equipment cost effective.

Congress considers two highway recycling bills

Two bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Andrews (D-New Jersey) would benefit the C&D recycling industry, according to the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA).

H.R. 529 would authorize the Secretary of Transportation to require theuse of recycled materials in Federal-aid highway projects, while H.R. 530 would require a percentage of state apportioned funds to go toward recycled materials.

The CMRA notes that recyclers wishing to support the bills, which will be introduced in this session, can write to their Congressional Representative. The CMRA can also be contacted at (630) 548-4510.

CONTRACTORS NABBED FOR ILLEGAL BURYING

Co-owners of an eastern Pennsylvania demolition firm have been sentenced to prison terms for illegally burying and scattering demolition debris generated at contract sites.

William R. Hawthorne and his brother Dave E. Hawthorne, co-owners of Lot Contractors Inc., Port Richmond, Pa., were sentenced to between 18 and 36 months in prison, and both men and their company were fined $8,000 apiece for violations of the Solid Waste Management Act of Pennsylvania.

The City of Philadelphia had hired Lot Contractors to demolish distressed properties within the city. But the company failed to comply with regulations regarding sorting and separating waste from recyclables, instead using the debris on site as fill material, according to the charges filed by an assistant district attorney.

Congress considers two highway recycling bills

Two bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Andrews (D-New Jersey) would benefit the C&D recycling industry, according to the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA).

H.R. 529 would authorize the Secretary of Transportation to require theuse of recycled materials in Federal-aid highway projects, while H.R. 530 would require a percentage of state apportioned funds to go toward recycled materials.

The CMRA notes that recyclers wishing to support the bills, which will be introduced in this session, can write to their Congressional Representative. The CMRA can also be contacted at (630) 548-4510.

MASSACHUSETTS TO ENFORCE C&D RECYCLING

Demolition and construction contractors in Massachusetts are studying pending regulations that could ban many types of C&D debris from entering landfills.

A solid waste master plan that will be adopted by the state addresses C&D materials in several ways, including banning materials generated at construction and demolition sites from entering landfills except as a residue after passing through a C&D recycling facility.

Between now and 2003, when the proposed ban would take place, the Massachusetts Department of Environ-mental Protection (DEP) intends to boost end markets for materials without established recycling infrastructures, including wood, asphalt shingles, gypsum drywall and carpeting.

According to C&D recycler John Kelso, executive vice president with Jet-A-Way Inc., Roxbury, Mass., such end market boosts will be needed.

A percentage of the company’s bulkier processed material, made up of soil and other fines, is being used as daily cover at landfills that will be closed as part of the state’s master solid waste plan.

To make up for that loss, Kelso says the company will have to find value-added market opportunities for the percentage of incoming mixed C&D materials consisting of wood, which makes up about 30% to 40% of the incoming stream.

Like other northeastern states, Massachusetts has high landfill tipping fees, which also allows mixed C&D recyclers to charge high tipping fees to haulers.

The state’s landfill capacity is considered chronically short, which has spurred an existing C&D recycling industry of 12 or so mixed C&D recycling facilities in the state.

Not only do haulers seek to send material to out-of-state landfills, but even recyclers like Kelso send residue out of state. “We ourselves have shipped as far as Ohio,” he notes.

And while the state master plan in theory allows new landfills to be opened, Kelso says that a recent state court decision makes the siting of such landfills unlikely. The court “ruled that a town can object to a facility on almost any grounds, so the reality of siting a landfill is going to be very difficult,” says Kelso.

Massachusetts officials have said they will only enforce the ban in 2003 if they conclude that an adequate infrastructure exists to recycled banned materials. The DEP has set a goal of an 88% recycling rate on C&D material by 2010.

SOIL TO OIL

A soil reclamation project in Texas has yielded an oil-bearing soil product suitable for use in cold mix asphalt products.

Soil reclaimed at the Col-Texas refinery site in Colorado City, Texas, will yield about 400,000 tons of material that is being used in cold mix asphalt products and water-based asphalt emulsions used by the construction and road building industries.

Lone Wolf Resources, the refinery’s former operator, has been working with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to turn soil from the petroleum-contaminated Superfund site into the products used for TxDOT-approved applications in and around Colorado City, including on local and state roads.

The property was identified as a Superfund site in 1994, according to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

Another Stadium Gets Recycled

Sports team owners have been demanding-and getting-new stadiums and arenas in record numbers in recent years. Along with the new venues have 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 recycle as much of the concrete and steel as possible.

The company doing the actual demolition work, Midwest Rail & Dismantling, Milwaukee, has begun the work of tearing down the external structure. Parts of the seating and other items considered memorabilia had already been removed.

According to Les Gumbiner, general manager of Midwest 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 about 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 buy the ferrous metals extracted from the facility.

Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh was imploded in early February, while Memorial Stadium in Baltimore will also soon face the wrecking ball.