Although installation of furniture is now required before any Indoor Air Quality Assessment can be done, the scope of furnishings are often dealt with separately, in separate contracts. Because of this, collection of waste/recycling would not be in the scope of the contractor, and since construction is done the waste bins have been removed from the site. So how is trash/recycling info captured/documented for furniture delivery? If they take their pallets and crating material back, do we need a statement from them saying they used X amount of pallets & crates, which weigh Y each, thus total weight of items diverted is Z? And what about the stretch/plastic wrap?
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Dave Hubka
Practice Leader - SustainabilityEUA
LEEDuser Expert
494 thumbs up
October 24, 2020 - 9:16 am
If the furniture and furnishings are part of the overall project scope, then their associated waste should be included within the LEED application. Similarly soda cans/food wrappers of construction workers while onsite should be inlcuded.
I wonder what percentage of the total construction waste is attributed to the packaging/delivery of furnture and furnishings. Not to mention, most all of the packaging is recylable (e.g. plastic wrap and cardboard) OR returnable (e.g. wood pallets).
If you were unable to track amount of plastic, cardboard, wood pallets, etc. associated with the furniture/furnishings,,,you could provide a statement from the team regarding how this was handled. For example, "wood pallets were returned to company for reuse AND plastic/cardboard was sent to recycling facility. Actual amounts of each are unknown, so it has not been included in the waste calculations. If included, the waste diversion percentage rate would increase."
Good Luck!