Material Streams in New Construction

Allison Wilson

Sustainability Director

Ayers Saint Gross

LEEDuser Basic Member

5 thumbs up

Project location :

United States

July 18, 2017

My best understanding is that there are five possible material diversion streams: - Commingled recycled - Donated - Recycled – source separated - Reused - Salvaged My question is this: how do you possibly hit four streams on a new construction project? On the renovation of an existing building, you may have opportunities to donate, reuse, or salvage, but in a new construction project, how are people finding ways to hit four streams?

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Nathan Gauthier

Director of FM Integration and Sustainability

Shawmut Design and Construction

LEEDuser Basic Member

21 thumbs up

Tue, 07/18/2017 - 17:15

You can break most of the streams you mention above into multiple separate streams. Commingled is pretty much always one stream (unless they separate and weigh the materials in each haul separately, which essentially nobody does), but recycled - source separated will actually be multiple streams. Separated concrete. Separated ferrous metal. Separated non-ferrous metal. Separated gypsum. Etc.

LEEDuser Expert

472 thumbs up

Wed, 07/19/2017 - 22:45

Allison - I appreciate Nathan pinch hitting for me. He provided you good information on source separated materials that go to various different recyclers for processing into new products. I just wanted to note a couple of things: 1. I frequently work with a contractor who measures the volume of commingled waste - so the materials can be counted as multiple streams under LEED v4 since each is measured. 2. LEEDuser guests cannot see the Bird's Eye View above (or access the Documentation Toolkit) that is available to those with memberships. (See more about memberships at http://www.leeduser.com/select). We have created content entitled What are Material Streams? in the Bird's Eye View to better explain this new term. 3. If you have access to LEED v4 web-based Reference Guide, it contains a very informative video entitled Defining Waste Streams.