Understanding how hazardous materials effect calculations

Answer to the June 10 question: Your non-friable material would not count in your construction waste total and neither would material coated with lead-based paint. They are considered hazardous materials and I have always excluded them from calculations. Answer to the May 31 question: This is difficult. If the local authorities will allow work in the space around the non-friable ACM, then I would suggest your GC/demolition subcontractor create a work plan to remove as much of the "clean" material as possible without disturbing the ACM and provide an alternate cost proposal. Then upon removal of ACM the amount of "clean" materal contaminated will be less than if they just crushed it together and hauled the now hazardous material to the landfill. Depending on your region and economy this selective demolition may be more or less expensive than ACM abatement. Recommendations: In the future some ways to avoid this scenario might be to 1) make the Owner aware and responsible for abatement prior to demolition sequence, and 2) add langauge to Architect's specification, or GC's bid instructions and GC's demolition subcontracts: that either require abatement prior to demo or requires selective demolition prior to removal of ACM or lead-based paint (another material that creates a similar situation). Note that without these controls, if a project specification or bid instruction/contract were to require the demolition contractor achieve a specific high waste diversion rate (i.e. 75% or 95%) it makes incentive for the demo subs to take all the heavy high dollar value recyclables out and then crush all the clean small/comingled material with the ACM or lead-based paint material so their numbers come out near perfect- not meeting the intent of the credit. I have seen this becoming a trend, so make sure there are proper safe-guards so the incentive will be to meet the credit intent. Hopefully you will find some selective demolition that is within your budget to give you as much recyclable tonnage before it gets contaminated and is no longer required to be counted in LEED. Good luck!

-Has anyone officially asked for a formal clarification from USGBC on this matter. We have numerous projects where the owner does not have the funding to fully abate a building, just to demolish it.

I am wondering if anybody has any other follow up on this. Per Jennifer Frey's comment "Note that without these controls, if a project specification or bid instruction/contract were to require the demolition contractor achieve a specific high waste diversion rate (i.e. 75% or 95%) it makes incentive for the demo subs to take all the heavy high dollar value recyclables out and then crush all the clean small/comingled material with the ACM or lead-based paint material so their numbers come out near perfect- not meeting the intent of the credit. I have seen this becoming a trend, so make sure there are proper safe-guards so the incentive will be to meet the credit intent." Has anyone had the credit rejected or questioned because of this (unintended) approach? Nicholas, have you had any feedback when having your projects reviewed?

I do not have experience with this specific situation and hope that the LEEDuser community will chime in to help. However, I would say that the cost of disposing waste as contaminated is much more than disposing of non-regulated waste. I would be surprised if contractors took this route if the cost impact were too high.