Subcontractors should be contractually required to implement their part of the CWM plan. Accountability is key to successfully implementing a CWM plan.
Review LEED requirements with contractors during the bidding process so that they understand their responsibilities.
Hiring construction teams that already have LEED experience and are familiar with CWM is helpful for credit achievement. They may already have developed CWM plans, have existing relationships with haulers and recyclers, and know how to train construction field personnel in CWM practices and track diversion rates.
Providing a sample CWM plan and guidelines on how to communicate it to subcontractors and workers can help to minimize any hesitation on the part of the GC.
Source separating, or onsite sorting, can yield the highest recycling rate and the best price for materials. Try to encourage the contractor to locate separate containers onsite to sort the materials.
In developing a CWM plan, take into account regional constraints, and weigh the feasibility of recycling or salvaging materials against other environmental factors, such as the impact of hauling waste long distances if recyclers are far from the project site. In such an instance, if site conditions allow, one strategy would be to stockpile material to be hauled only once or twice during a project to cut down on transportation cost and associated environmental impact.
Developing the CWM plan is the responsibility of the contractor but, ideally, the project team should work together to come up with a thorough CWM plan that addresses not only recycling, but also reusing and salvaging as many materials as possible.
A CWM plan is an action plan for how to deal with construction and demolition (C&D) waste. At a minimum, it needs to identify what the recycling goals are, what materials will be recycled, reused or salvaged, which materials will be landfilled, and the estimated amounts of each (either by volume or by weight, but consistently throughout the project), processors that will receive the construction and demolition waste, and onsite procedures for achieving the stated goals.
The GC develops the CWM plan.
The GC and project team should hold an orientation meeting to review all LEED-specific issues related not only to recycling and reuse, or salvaging, but also to reducing waste onsite in general.