Hi I was wondering if it was possible to document the solid waste management for both ongoing and durable goods in an alternative way. The problem we are encountering is that we are trying to certify one building, but that building is apart of a campus. They share all the same waste and are collected all into one bin. It is extremely difficult for our waste collectors to sort out the waste from just one building. Our waste management said they can most likely document the buildings waste separately for maybe a week or two but beyond that would be to resource heavy on their part. The waste management suggested they could just document whole campus data, because it would be an easier process for them to manage campus data as opposed to separating all the trash coming from that one building.
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Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
June 30, 2010 - 1:00 pm
This is a question that lots of folks have struggled with and I can offer some insight, if not a definitive answer. My understanding is that the USGBC/GBCI hasn't provided formal guidance on this issue and maintains the prerogative to determine appropriateness based on the specifics of an individual project. That being said, it is my experience that MRc7 particularly (as well as MRc8 and MRc9) can legitimately be pursued using a campus-wide number. Many of the campuses I work with have this problem - multiple buildings are served on a route, and there is no measurement technology on the trucks to assess the load from a single building. If your campus is relatively small and homogenous (in terms of building type and likely waste) the GBCI is more likely to be sympathetic. On the other hand, an alternative approach (with a higher degree of certainty about GBCI ruling) is to implement your own waste volume tracking protocol - effectively finding a way to have your staff estimate the volume of each material leaving the building before each pickup. We have implemented a similar approach at a number of buildings and after overcoming a bit of bellyaching from the custodial staff who had to look in the dumpsters every day and write down the % fullness, it's worked quite nicely. (Final note: MRc6 is, in contrast to MRc7-9, never earnable on a campus-wide basis. Waste audits must be building-specific.) Hope that helps!
Richard Navarro
Google82 thumbs up
June 30, 2010 - 1:15 pm
Thanks Dan!
I was wondering for the situation where they had written the % fullness from the dumpster, how did they determine which went to the dump and which was recycled, composted, etc?
Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
June 30, 2010 - 1:21 pm
Ah, Richard - That's a whole new level of trouble! In our situation, we had occupant material separation so the staff recorded information for the recycling dumpster, the compost bin, and the landfill-directed dumpster separately. If you have only a single bin where ALL facility waste is collected and then sorted off-site, my suggestion isn't going to be helpful and I think you are back to using a campus-wide number. You might consider submitting a CIR early in your certification process to confirm that this will be viable, but, unless your building is somehow unique to your campus AND likely to be the worst-performing (and therefore getting its lousy recycling performance masked by the campus-wide figure) I would think you'll find a reasonable response from GBCI.