Turner Construction Goes for 100% Waste Recycling

The Katrina recovery includes the biggest waste-disposal job in U.S. history. Some of the biggest builders in the U.S. are embracing construction waste recycling on a large scale but it probably won’t help in this case. Here’s why.

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In September 2004, Thomas C. Leppert, Chairman and CEO of The Turner Corp., one of the nation’s largest general builders, and a leader in green building, announced it would adopt sustainable construction and business practices throughout the organization. As part of that commitment, Turner launched an initiative to recycle construction waste on all projects commencing construction after Jan. 1, 2005. The corporate goal is to recycle waste on 100% of our projects within three years, with an overall diversion rate of 50%.

Turner has a long history of leadership in sustainable construction, with more than 100 green projects in the last 10 years either completed or in progress, including 15 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified projects and an additional 45 LEED-registered projects. It is standard practice to recycle construction and demolition waste on these jobs ? often exceeding 75% diversion rates and exceeded 95% on some projects. However, with more than 1,500 active projects across the country at any given time, it is another matter entirely to institute recycling on a national scale, over a broad range of project types, in different areas of the country where the cost and ability to recycle can vary drastically.

Recycling capabilities vary widely from region to region. Waste diversion is typically more successful in areas where land is scarce, tipping fees are high, and recycling operations are commercially viable, such as New York and Boston. Conversely, regions where land is abundant, tipping fees are low and commercial recycling is not well established, such as Texas, virtually all construction and demolition waste is sent to landfills.

Despite this regional disparity, the overall early results are encouraging. From January through May 2005, Turner diverted 61.05% of material, including (in order of tonnage) concrete, metal, wood, paper/cardboard, and miscellaneous.

Even though the logistics of diversion in Boston and New York are most difficult, this is where they’ve seen the best results. Almost everything about construction is more difficult there: site conditions are very tight; moving materials to and from the site; and even finding space for just one waste container is a challenge. As a result, unlike suburban or rural areas where multiple dumpsters can be placed on site to accept segregated waste, there is virtually no on-site separation of waste.

However, Cardella Carting Co. (New York, N.Y.), one of Turner’s major carting contractors, manages to routinely recycle at a rate of 75% or better, not just on LEED projects, but on all Turner projects. In the three months from March through May on an average of nine jobs per month, Cardella diverted more than 2,500 tons of waste for an overall diversion rate of 87%.

In Boston, for the months of April and May, Charles George Trucking, who handles the majority of Turner’s work in that market, diverted 1,300 tons of waste on 10 different jobs with a diversion rate of 72% overall. In both cities this is accomplished by trucking co-mingled waste to a regional facility where it is then separated and sent to various destinations for recycling.

Besides innovative regional firms, Turner has also had good response from the two national players, Waste Management and Allied/BFI. But even these national players are subject to local market conditions. It is not feasible, or fiscally or environmentally sound, to truck waste from a part of the country with little recycling capability to one with better facilities.

What are the constraints? First, the reporting logistics are daunting. Standard reporting forms have to be consistent across the country and provide comparable data for all projects. Different areas of the country are able to recycle some materials but not others. Some projects separate waste at the job site while others remove co-mingled waste and separate remotely. Data had to be verifiable, with supporting back up.

Next, for every New York or Boston, there is a Texas, where land is abundant, tipping fees are low, and commercial recycling is virtually non-existent. As a result, many jobs simply send all waste to a landfill without a second thought and without detailed documentation. It is hard to penalize a project for not recycling if the market conditions don?t exist to support it.

Over the next 24 to 36 months, Turner’s focus will be to achieve 100% compliance, maintain quality control and improve results. To succeed, this program must become part of company culture ? simply the way they do business. Managing construction waste is an important part of a sustainable practice, to which Turner Construction is fully committed.

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Adapted from “Construction Waste Management” in Environmental Design + Construction, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.