An issue, new to me, has come up as I am reviewing a LEED Submittal for Structural Steel:
Q. One of the steel producers, Gerdau, has updated their "Recycled Steel Content for All Products by Mill" document for 2012, which I have linked in case anyone is interested. (http://www.gerdauameristeel.com/products/cl/docs/LEED%20Data2.pdf)
They are now carrying a column in the table for "Home or Revert Scap". I am not sure how to classify this re: MRc4 or MRc5. Here are my questions:
1) For MRc4, do I count it at a 50% rate, similar to pre-consumer scrap? If so, does anyone know why they may have made this distinction?
2) For MRc5, can this material be considered sourced at the mill, similar to the Pre-Consumer Recycled Content material (at the 50% rate), and added into the regional total? (Gerdau rolls this number into their unclassified "Total Recycled Content" column in the same table, so I assume this is a proper interpretation).
Does anyone have a clear understanding of "home or revert scrap", is it simply scrap generated in-house that has been isolated by the manufacturer?
I would appreciate any input. Thank you.
UPDATE: As I have continued to work through this sumbittal, I am starting to think that what they have done is separate their Pre-consumer source material from their Post-Industrial source material. "Home or revert scrap" may be just another term for Post-Industrial. Does this sound right?
Noriko Nagazumi
Woonerf Inc.74 thumbs up
September 18, 2012 - 9:43 pm
I'd like to know what home or revert means too.
Anyways, how about contacting Gerdau about their definition?
For projects that are located more than 500 miles from the mill, consider the recovery/harvested location as the individual scrap collection locations that fall within the project 500 mile radius. Gerdau can provide a regional percentage value based on which of our scrap providers are located within 500 miles of the project. The Regional Material Value can be calculated using the reported regional percentage of the recycle content (recovered/harvested scrap) of the product used. Please contact Gary Peters at gary.peters@gerdau.com or at (813) 207-2353 for project specific information.
Sustainability Ballinger
4 thumbs up
September 19, 2012 - 2:11 pm
Noriko,
Thank you for the reply, and for the Gerdau contact info. I had gone to their website in search of further information. Otherwise, I have a pretty good handle on the regional content, which came from multiple suppliers/mills.
We seem to be meeting our project targets using the mill locations (as permitted per the LEED 2009 addenda). I realize some of the mills can offer futher informaiton on scrap sourcing, but it does not seem that all can.(I think this is one of the considerations taken into account in the addenda).
Thanks again.