Aspects Of Demolition And Construction Materials Recycling

By Tara Daniels


Many General Contractors are concerned about why they should bother about the expenses of construction materials recycling. The quest is fair indeed and does deserve being addressed directly. To start exploring this issue, it gets necessary first acknowledging something simple, that landfill space is not infinite commodity.

It is available for a certain season. Secondly, shipping of landfill material overseas is really not a lasting option. The shipping of such substances at best comes only as temporal solution and back-loads the challenge to the generations which follow behind. As such, it gets vital focusing on attaining a solution that is permanent in order to save future generations. It is in fact well known that activities relating to construction do generate millions of demolition and building debris each year. This thus leads to filling of landfills at rather astonishing rates. General Contractors have a number of options which to consider. First is the tradition option of land-filling on everything.

Another way of addressing the matter is to conduct limited recycling of metals, plastics, paper and wood. Third is reusing all substances which are non-toxic. Traditional options for building allow only for general contractors to focus primarily on current waste management practices. There is no adequate hope for future environmental control practices with such undertakings.

GCs do approximate that the number of hauls required throughout building time and include the landfill aspects into their commercial bids. The delivery fees, fuel surcharges and tip fees all are passed directly onto project owner or representative. This method is in line in fact with standard procedure when one is not pursuing any kind of certification for environment friendliness.

GCs primarily approximate numbers of hauls which are necessary to carry out when doing construction works then proceed to make their commercial bids. The fees for delivery, fuel surcharges and fees for tips all get passed directly onto the representative or owner of a certain building. Such action in fact toes the line with standard procedures employed when not pursuing any form of registration certificate to assure of conducting environment-friendly exercises.

The traditional GCs ought to change their methods of waste management for them to survive in the present eco-friendly environment. Going by project owners, GCs could attempt recycling metal, wood/paper plus plastics. Majority of general contractors experience limited success owing to not being familiar with the proper manner of practicing management techniques of C & D.

Failure of understanding practices of waste management in general leads to unhappy project owners. The situation is however recoverable still if GC does choose engaging professionals in the undertaking in good time to carry out development. An active management firm for waste will have good access to local markets for reuse. Such action aids the GC in marketing their construction waste to the reuse firms, realizing perhaps a certain form of revenue stream in order to defray waste management cost. Revenue realized ought to be negotiated upfront. As well it should be understood clearly by all parties involved, including owners of project.

The option most preferred is to establish waste reuse in full which could prove a challenge of sorts to general contractors plus garbage hauling operators. Nevertheless, professional construction waste recycling and GC may attain high-level success in construction materials recycling. This undertaking nonetheless requires some great amount of trust, sit co-ordination and trust between them.




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