MR Prerequisite Construction and Demo Debris

Jon Texter

President

Essex General Construction, Inc.

LEEDuser Basic Member

41 thumbs up

August 2, 2011

"Establishes contractual requirements with responsible waste and recycling haulers, including waste reporting requirements for involved parties." We have found that the recycling programs in our area are constantly evolving. We have found ourselves altering waste/recycling haulers during projects when a better program becomes available. This requirements seems that it would require the contractor to be locked into a contractual relation with the initial choices that they made with no ability to alter that selection if a better program comes along. In the case of one of our current projects, that means that we would be sending GWB and styrofoam to the landfill rather than a recycler just because we were unaware of the proper recycling programs at the beginning of construction. It seems that we would be punished by LEED for making the environmentally responsible choice.

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Christina Macken

Assistant Project Manager, LEED v4

U.S. Green Building Council

LEEDuser Premium Member

90 thumbs up

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 16:23

Hi Jon - Thanks for your comments. The goal of the prerequisite is to set up performance expectations regarding waste diversion early in the project. What do you think about a documentation path that allows for flexibility in instances where project teams have made contractual changes resulting in improved environmental decision making? We'll continue to consider this comment as we further refine the language. Thanks!

Beth Cheuvront

LEEDuser Basic Member

5 thumbs up

Mon, 09/12/2011 - 17:19

My name is Tom Gray, Beth is a colleague. All jobs around here are now done co-mingled. The contractors put everything in one container and it goes off to who knows where for sure and evry month or so we get a poorly written spreadsheet stating that 96% or something is being recycled. Some of these processors are legit and I know some just do whatever is cheapest. We need some teeth in this credit to force these operators to at least lie on letterhead and tell us exactly how they process all the materials, how they estimate loads, photos of sorting areas, etc. This method has removed any incentive for the contractor to sort on site, even when there are large amounts of same material being generated. (High value items sometimes the exception) I see us trucking co-mingled loads 65 miles to sorter, right past a 5 mile away wood recycler for example.