The Move from Riprap to Road Base Produces Rosy Numbers

By Mark Stemen PhD, CSU, Chico

The last issue of Environmental News pointed out that in 1999 Chico diverted 48% of its waste from the Neal Road landfill. While that figure is still short of the 50% diversion rate that State law mandates by 2000, it is pretty close. The people in Chico should be proud. We have made great strides. One of the flagships of the effort is the curbside recycling service offered to all residents. The waste haulers and city staff have made it easy to recycle, and 83% of city residents do so. Numbers are not available for businesses, but it appears to me that most of the places I visit are trying to do something. But are residents and businesses really diverting half the waste they were in 1990? A closer examination of the numbers hints that we are not.

First, it important to note the 1999 diversion figures are not new numbers, really. In 1995 the City filed for a new base year calculation, and the 1999 report is a mathematical estimation based on the 1995 report, combined with changes in population, taxable sales, employment, the consumer price index, and construction in the residential and non-residential sectors. The City obtains a number for each item, as well as the reported disposal at the landfill, and then plugs these figures into a formula supplied by the California Integrated Waste Management Board. The formula produces a "reporting year diversion rate." For 1999, the figure was 48%. At no point in the process were the actual recycled materials weighed or counted.

The last time the City looked at the recycling stream and tried to calculate its weight and composition was for the reporting year 1995. The City filed the report in 1998, and the numbers are reveling. In 1995 Chico residents and businesses sent 63,314 tons of waste to the landfill, and diverted 47,427 tons into different uses. Of the diverted total, 6,031.5 tons were cans, bottles and newspapers, the common recyclables in household garbage. So what made up the other 87% of the recyclable stream? Well, the compost facility at the airport took in 8,380 tons of leaves and yard waste, cardboard recycling or reuse accounted for 2,005 tons, and the rendering of food waste into lard diverted another 660 tons from the landfill. Add in waste avoided through mulched grass at parks, golf courses, and athletic fields (2762 tons), re-use at thrift stores (4,257) and garage sales (547 tons), plus other miscellaneous items and the total is still only 25,498 tons, or a 23% diversion rate. Where are the other 21,929 tons?

Over 46% of Chico's waste diversion came from one commodity: construction and demolition debris, or C&D. C&D consists of ripped up roads, torn down buildings and other chunks of aggregate material. For the past five years much of the aggregate material has ended up at a debris yard operated by Baldwin Construction. Operators at the yard separate the materials and then grind it up in large machines. The concrete is used as road base and the asphalt is blended into new pavement. In 1995 Baldwin Construction diverted 24,366 tons of material, of which approximately 90% came from the City of Chico. A similar operation located on site of the recently razed Fred Meyer building recycled over 90% of the structure by reducing the material to a pile of gravel.

In 1990, the base year for the State-mandated program, and for many years prior, demolition firms donated this type of material to farmers who used it as riprap, or to improve drainage in a field. Reauthorization of the Clean Water Act in 1996 severely limited such activities, so the firms made the wise business decision; they turned trash into a commodity. All of this is well and good, of course, but for purposes of State Assembly Bill 939 reporting, I think it is inappropriate for the Waste Board to consider 22,000 tons of large rubble a "diversion" because the material rarely went to the landfill in the first place. The board also credits golf courses 7.6 tons per acre in diversion if they don't bag the clippings even though they never bagged the clippings. Adding such materials skews the numbers, and makes us think we are doing better than were are.

Despite the creative allowances, it is still going to be hard to get to 50%. As they say in the industry, all the low lying fruit has been picked. Now we have to climb. Even with the efforts of companies like Baldwin, C&D is still the second largest component of the waste stream. C&D falls between paper (#1) and yard waste (#3), both of which have city programs to encourage recycling. A high percentage of the C&D that shows up at the landfill comes from residential and small business construction. Like residential recycling two decades ago, the high valued items are beginning to disappear from the waste stream. Doors, windows, and fixtures--the aluminum cans of C&D--are being recycled into the rental repair trade, but plenty of valuable material is being unnecessarily entombed at Neal Road.

Much like households, space and convenience are the top priority for construction recycling. The City of Chico needs a program for low valued construction recyclables like the program offered for residents. Construction sites could get two containers, for example, one for waste and another for co-mingled recyclables: lumber, drywall, cardboard, and metal. Another option being tested in Atlanta is on- site grinding of home construction debris. Independent contractors bring portable grinding equipment to the site and reduce the wood and drywall scraps to usable mulch in a few hours. A magnetic head removes nails and the material is left in a pile to be spread later. Landscapers love it. The gypsum in the drywall loosens the soil and the wood chips reduce erosion.

As a community we also need to begin moving toward "designing for discard" when we plan structures. At minimum, we need to make it easier to deconstruct buildings, to remove the windows and doors and such. We also need to avoid toxic materials in the initial construction process. Lead and asbestos contamination keep many conscientious contractors from attempting to deconstruct buildings, forcing them to send it to a registered facility. Green building proponents argue fiberglass and PVC are the asbestos of the 21st century. We need to plan ahead.

We also need to respond to changes in the business world. The days of the company town and "the factory" are over. Current figures have 80% of small businesses failing in the first year. If that is true, then buildings are going to change occupants and requirements. Office buildings have responded with walls that can move. Retail construction should follow suit. Did anyone else find it ironic that a national home improvement outlet could not remodel its own store?

They are many things we can do to reduce waste because "waste" is a verb, not a noun. It reflects the choices that we make. I think we can make better choices, and we just might do so, if funny numbers did not mislead us.

From the Spring 2001 issue of the Environmental News.