The City of Plano's newest recycling program, Construction and Demolition (C&D) Recycling, has recently been awarded an Environmental Vision Award for C&D from the North Texas Corporate Recycling Association.  This program is part of the City’s Environmental Waste Service’s Green Building Plan, which the city implemented in November of 2004. Since its inception, the C&D program has reduced the amount of waste going to the landfill by over 8,400 tons and is assisting the City toward reaching its goal of 40% diversion.  C&D debris can contribute up to 33% of the cities total waste stream and up to 65% of the waste stream of a typical construction and demolition project can be recycled.

Materials generated at a construction site that can be recycled include wood, concrete, metal, brick, stone and even drywall.  One of the largest challenges the City faced when beginning this program was finding facilities and service providers capable of handling, hauling and recycling these materials efficiently and cost effectively for the construction company.  Karen Hargis, City of Plano Commercial Diversion Coordinator , was responsible for identifying several area recycling companies and coordinating the diversion of the above listed materials. 

Excess concrete, concrete washout, and concrete debris produced from demolition can be hauled to Big City Crushed Concrete, a Dallas based company who has been in the concrete recycling business for sixteen years. The concrete is loaded into crushers and manufactured into Grade 1 Flex-base that can be incorporated into various highway or paving projects.    

Lumber, another large volume construction material, can be transported to Plano ’s Composting Facility where it is processed into valuable compost products and marketed as Plano Pure Products.  These products can be purchased, in bulk or one cubic foot bags, from the Custer Road Facility and from various local vendors throughout the city and surrounding areas. Plano Pure erosion control blends are also produced for landscaping projects to protect the surrounding environment during construction and improve our native soil.     

A number of projects have already utilized the C&D recycling program including Plano Independent School District (PISD), which began with two large repaving projects this past summer at Vines High School and PISD Service Facilities. Project official and PISD construction manager, Doug Guynes, reported diverting 600 tons of demolished concrete to Big City Crushed Concrete.

"Between the two projects, C&D recycling saved PISD $29,000 that would have been paid in landfill fees.” stated Mr. Guynes. The project was also able to retrieve 17,000 tons of recycled flex base that was used under the new pavement.  PISD has been so pleased with the success of the program they have added amendments to future project proposals to include recycling.  These recycling methods not only preserved our local environment but saved PISD and the community valuable tax dollars as well.

Another large commercial contracting company, Construction Supervisors, Inc., implemented C&D recycling at the new Wal-Mart on the corner of Park and the Dallas North Tollway. Construction Supervisors took a progressive role in recycling and even reduced office trash by implementing single-stream recycling in their on-site offices and site trailers.  Since April 2005, the 225,000 sq. ft. project has diverted well over 280 tons of recyclable material including lumber, landscape debris and concrete.  Furthermore, the company utilized over 20,000 tons of flex base material produced from recycled concrete at almost half the cost of virgin materials.   Project heads and supervisors were all very pleased with the results and plan to take advantage of the program in the future.  

Project site superintendent, Steve Noble reported, “We are doing very well, being able to keep the debris separated.  We are very pleased with the results at the moment and look forward to calculating the final cost of the project.  Wesley Ramsey, (building construction superintendent) and I foresee a significant savings resulting from the recycling operation.”

These two projects and others are contenders for a City of Plano Environmental Star of Excellence Award in the C&D Recycling category, which will be presented at the Plano Chamber of Commerce luncheon in December.  For more information on the program, please visit http://www.planocommercialrecycling.com