Looking Ahead The debris disposal issue is likely to become even more serious as dumps continue to climb toward capacity. In California, landfill space has become so scarce that the state has required for several years now that at least 50% of construction debris be recycled. Steve Farrell, of The Farrell Co. in Los Altos, Calif., says that many municipalities take regulations even further, requiring that “every piece of garbage that comes off our sites goes to salvage or recycle yards.” For large demolition projects, Farrell uses a deconstruction company (for more information on deconstruction and recycling, see “Everything Old Is New Again”).
California is generally ahead of the curve when it comes to issues like these, and progress is very spotty throughout the country, generally following regional trends. Brad Guy, president of the Building Materials Reuse Association, notes that most of the places that have not embraced recycling of building materials have very low “tipping fees;” that is, the cost of disposal is so low that builders and remodelers don’t seek out the alternatives. However, he argues that the costs are basically a wash. “It will cost you a bit of labor to separate your waste on site, but you’ll be paying ‘x’ dollars in tipping fees [anyway],” he says. And that assumes all things being equal, which they’re not; there are obvious long-term environmental benefits to recycling building materials.
Guy further notes that it appears that other parts of the country will soon be forced to follow, in some way or another, the example that California has set. Massachusetts recently passed legislation that will ban disposal of certain construction debris starting in July. Guy says that there is less and less room for landfills as the country becomes more populated, and those that do exist are moving to the outskirts of urban areas. “People don’t want landfills near them,” he says. “However, particularly if gas prices keep going up, it will be uneconomical to even haul debris [to landfills].” This points to an increase in reuse and recycling on a national level.
If these trends do become national, expect some changes in your business. Farrell says that bonds of upwards of $5,000 are required to ensure compliance, and contractors must provide weight receipts to prove they are recycling the required amount of material.
Ultimately, though, Farrell says it’s one of those things that come with the territory of owning a small business. “How well you adapt to new conditions determines how well you survive,” he says. Once you get familiar with new procedures, you can even turn them into additional profits. “We make money on the cost of goods sold,” Farrell says, “so we [now] make more money.”