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It’s not uncommon for up to 85% of all C&D waste to be concrete. That’s why concrete recycling is such a problem for most construction companies - disposing of it otherwise is incredibly expensive and harmful to the environment.
But what if there was a way to reduce your costs, recycle concrete, and even become LEED compliant in the process?
That’s exactly what today’s post will cover. We’ve even broken things up into the following sections for easy access:
Let’s get started.
Concrete recycling is a huge issue in construction and demolition. Along with metal, concrete is one of the most prevalent types of waste in these lines of work. Whether you’re breaking slabs serving as a pathway, removing old foundations, demolishing buildings or getting rid of an old driveway, you can’t escape from the mountain of concrete waste.
It’s heavy, it’s inflexible, it’s everywhere, and it almost always needs to be removed or replaced.
Sending all of it off to landfill isn’t an option, as the sheer weight of it means that you’ll be paying huge amounts for the privilege. Concrete also doesn’t decompose, so if it’s put in landfill it will continue to take up space and pose an environmental hazard until something is done about it.
Concrete recycling solves this problem.
Instead of dumping the old and making more (further compounding the problem) it’s better to break down, clean, and recycle or reuse your concrete waste. Here are just a few uses for concrete recycling, depending on the size of the chunks you’re getting rid of:
The trick with concrete recycling is to either have a use for the old material internally or to know someone who could take it off your hands to use themself. For example, if you crush clean waste concrete to make Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) this can serve as the base for a fresh batch, saving you a good chunk of the cost of new materials.
As for connecting with others to take waste concrete off your hands, that’s where we at Trashco Inc come in.
As long as your waste concrete is in pieces smaller than 2ft across, contains no trash, and little to no rebar, we can help put you in contact with other companies who could use your waste and potentially even pay you for the privilege. That’s right, you can get some money back by selling your waste concrete to others.
That’s not all that the Trashco Inc team can do to solve your concrete waste woes!
By having a free initial consultation with us, we can advise and help you to get rid of your concrete in the most efficient and environmentally-friendly way possible, all while helping you work towards the waste management side of LEED compliance.
If you’re not familiar with LEED, here are the basics.
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program is the current gold standard worldwide for designing and maintaining green buildings. More specifically for our purposes, it’s a set of guidelines that you can follow in designing, constructing, maintaining, and demolishing buildings to make them as environmentally friendly as possible.
Meeting the requirements in different categories will award you with higher levels of certification, those being:
The exact categories assessed depend on the business you’re in, but for construction the main areas include water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, site sustainability, and so on.
So what does this have to do with concrete recycling and saving money?
Well, LEED qualification and certification come with benefits, including zoning allowances, expedited permitting and, yes, reduced fees and tax credits. If your construction is LEED certified, that means that your projects are being designed and carried out in as green a manner as possible, which inherently results in savings versus tipping everything into landfill anyway (as explained above).
You can earn up to 2 points towards LEED certification in the “Materials and Resources category” by responsibly handling construction and demolition waste, and by recycling as much as possible. However, to qualify at all for these you first need to have a waste management plan and projections for how much waste you’ll be producing.
As the official LEED guidelines put it, every project’s plan must do the following:
Once you’ve got a solid plan to follow, points are then awarded based on how thoroughly you stick to that plan, and how much of your waste you successfully divert from landfill and incineration services.
One point is awarded for following the plan and diverting at least 50% of your waste. Another is given if you generate less than 10 lbs per square ft (50 kg per meter squared) of waste materials from all new construction activities.
The difficulties come with being able to accurately project your waste amounts, track how much is actually being produced, and especially with finding ways to get rid of your waste (be it concrete, metal, wood, or otherwise) without simply sending it to landfill or an incinerator.
You need to know how to manage your waste effectively. You need Trashco Inc.
We here at Trashco Inc. are dedicated to cleaning up Laredo and the surrounding Texas area. From construction and commercial to warehousing and retail, our clients sit safe in the knowledge that their waste is being handled quickly, reliably, cheaply, and in the most environmentally-friendly way possible.
By talking to our helpful team and booking a free initial consultation, you can forget the headache of setting up an effective waste management plan from scratch. Our experts will be able to talk through waste projections with you, give advice on the cheapest waste solutions that suit your needs, and even put you into contact with others who could help with concrete recycling by either using it themselves or potentially paying you for your waste rubble!
While we can’t perform a LEED assessment, we’re also familiar enough with the guidelines to give you advice on what you may need to do in order to get certified yourself and reap the benefits of LEED compliance.
Click here to solve your concrete recycling headaches and start your LEED journey!
