Waste Not

Nearly 100 tons of metal and drywall, plus a small amount of wood, were recycled out of just one store’s construction at the new Short Pump Mall near Richmond, Va., according to Winter Construction, general contractor for the store.

While that may not seem like a lot, it is just another example of the path that Winter, based in Atlanta, has taken regarding construction waste recycling.

The Short Pump recycling project is one of many the company has undertaken recently as part of its work, according to Lawrence Finn, vice president of operations for Winter Construction. While the effort saved more than $4,000 on the 170,000-square foot retail project, he says it is so simple to do that he doesn’t understand why more construction companies don’t recycle.

"Not only is it economically feasible to recycle, it is the right thing to do," Finn says. "It’s a no-brainer."

At Short Pump Mall, Winter Construction positioned waste and recycling containers throughout the building during construction. The containers were clearly marked for metal, concrete, wood, drywall, cardboard or waste. Responsibility for the disposal of all excess material generated at the site was removed from the subcontractors’ scopes, and the labor cost savings were passed on to the store owner, Nordstrom, says Finn.

To ensure compliance with materials sorting, clean-up was performed by a Winter-supervised labor crew. The material to be recycled was hauled off site, except for the drywall.

For example, the metal was sent to Smith Iron & Metal Co. Inc., Richmond. The concrete went to a yard run by Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) member Independence Recycling. Independence is based near Cleveland, but has portable crushing plants and facilities stationed throughout the U.S.

D&L Pallets of Richmond got the pallets, which the company reconditioned and resold. Manchester Paper Recycling in Virginia received all the OCC (old corrugated containers) and other paper grades.

The drywall was used on site. Ten 30-cubic-yard containers were toted to a staging area for the landscape contractor, Visionscapes Inc., Tucker, Ga. Packer Industries of Mableton, Ga., supplied the drywall grinder, which a Winter Construction crew operated.

A skid-steer with a bucket fed the scrap gypsum into the low-speed, high-torque grinder to produce a 1/2-inch minus product. Visionscapes takes the processed wallboard, both the gypsum and the paper, and screens it before mixing it with the final topsoil product that will be used around the Nordstrom store.

At other projects, Winter has been even more aggressive about recycling the wood generated. It has used the same type of grinder to process the wood into a mulch product that can be used for decoration or for erosion control.

The company has been exploring construction debris diversion for a number of years. In the fall of 2000, Winter Construction and Federated Department Stores Inc., Cincinnati, launched a Construction Waste Management program that recycled approximately 20 percent of the materials generated at Federated’s new Rich’s stores at the Mall of Georgia in Buford, Ga., and Stonecrest Mall in Lithonia, Ga.

At the Mall of Georgia, Winter was able to divert more than 1,000 cubic yards of metals and wood construction material to recycling facilities.

At that time, prior to the Stonecrest project, Finn remarked, "We feel confident that we can re-use or recycle up to 50 percent of the waste generated during the construction of this store. We expect to be industry leaders in this effort."