Industry News

The Recycling Today Media Group, Cleveland, is following up on the success of the Recycling Today e-newsletter and Web site with a Web site and e-newsletter for readers of sister publication C&D Recycler.

C&D Recycler readers with Internet and e-mail access now have a Web site to visit—www.cdrecycler.com—and will soon start receiving a monthly e-newsletter that will help the magazine’s staff stay in touch with readers of the bi-monthly print publication between issues.

According to C&D Recycler editor Brian Taylor, like the bi-monthly magazine, the e-newsletter will concentrate on news affecting the construction and demolition industries, with a focus on the recycling of concrete, asphalt, wood and other materials generated and consumed by the construction, demolition and road building industries.

Those currently receiving the Recycling Today e-newsletter who would like to also start receiving the C&D Recycler Update e-newsletter can contact Recycling Today Media Group Internet Editor Dan Sandoval at dsandoval@RecyclingToday.com.

"We’ll still work hard to put together dynamic magazines that offer a window on current events and a look at what lies ahead," says Taylor. "Now, with our Web sites and e-newsletters, we’re also able to reach out and provide news and advertising information to help bridge the gap between issues."

The Web site will include news items posted daily as well as archives of past issues of C&D Recycler magazine. The site will also provide a link to the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) Web site and information on industry events such as the CMRA Annual Meeting taking place in January in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Members of the C&D Recycler staff, including associate publisher and CMRA executive director William Turley, will contribute content to the new Web site and can be contacted via e-mail addresses listed on the site.

Downtown Cincinnati is now the site of a sizable demolition debris recycling project, after the successful implosion of the former Riverfront Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 29.

The long-time home of the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals was brought down by a series of explosions that caused the stadium to collapse inward onto the former playing field over a 37-second time span.

The former Riverfront Stadium, also known as Cinergy Field in recent years, served as home to Cincinnati’s football and baseball teams for 32 years, having opened in 1970.

But with a new football stadium already in place and a new baseball park nearly complete along the same stretch of the Ohio River, the stage was set for the demolition industry’s greatest piece of theater: the structural implosion.

According to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer, 1,400 pounds of explosives were placed within the stadium’s 18 concrete structural supporting columns. The explosives were detonated in a sequence of blasts over a 37-second span that brought the stadium down one section at a time.

The stadium was brought down at a slower pace than some other recent stadium and arena implosions because of the nearby presence of a 140-year-old bridge over the Ohio River that might not have been able to withstand the shock of the stadium coming down all at once.

After the series of blasts, 135,000 tons of concrete and steel are now settled in a 45-foot-deep pit. The O’Rourke Wrecking Co., Cincinnati, has through the month of August to clear out and recycle the debris.

Before the implosion, the company conducted a sale of seats, plumbing fixtures and other items for which there was a souvenir or re-sale value.

Once cleared, the site will be used for parking and will house a Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame building.

After the implosion, Jeff Sizemore off O’Rourke Wrecking told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the stadium’s collapse went as planned, leaving a lot of pulverized concrete dust, but also some 22,500 tons of recyclable scrap steel and some concrete chunks that will be crushed and recycled.

S&S National Waste in West Palm Beach, Fla., has reportedly sued the town of Timberlake Pines, Fla., because the town is enforcing its waste franchise agreement to include construction and demolition (C&D) materials.

The agreement promises that all the municipality’s garbage must go to a specified hauler. S&S contends that C&D materials should not be part of that contract, and that it can haul the material to its yard for recycling.

According to William Turley, executive director of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), Lisle, Ill., such franchise agreements are common in south Florida. "Waste is all wrapped in exclusive contracts with specific waste haulers, usually either Waste Management or Republic," says Turley.

While these types of lawsuits do occasionally pop up over C&D debris, members of the Florida Recyclers Coalition, CMRA’s affiliate in the Sunshine State, say that they probably will become more prevalent in the coming months because many towns are beginning to target C&D debris as part of the solid waste stream.

According to Turley, when this tonnage goes to the franchised waste companies, they in turn give the towns a "host fee" per ton. "Most just dump the material in their landfills," says Turley of the franchise-holding solid waste companies.

But the recyclers say that mixed C&D debris can be recycled at a rate of 80 percent to 90 percent, and that it is not waste and thus should not be a part of the franchise agreements.