RecycleGuy Campaign for Alternative Daily Cover Brook Edwards ADC

Recycle Guy, LLC since 1995

ADC

Alternative Daily Cover

Made From Grinding

Construction & Demolition Waste

Introduction Booklet in Using Alternative Daily Cover

Submitted by

Brook Edwards

RecycleGuy, LLC

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the end of the article in PDF form

When an item is removed from the waste stream and then actually used in place of a virgin resource, it is then considered recycled. An example would be a corrugated box recovered by a reclamation facility and then processed by shredding and baling to prepare it for shipping to a paper mill for use as feedstock. This reclaimed OCC (Old Corrugated Containers) now takes the place of virgin fiber. This example is straightforward because it is easy to equate the results once the facts are known, which are one ton of reclaimed corrugated containers will save 17 trees.

2. How many other examples besides the corrugated box are there that reuse materials saving virgin resources?

Countless items in today’s world reuse commodities saved by recyclers. One of the most plentiful and most valuable items in 2006 is plastic. Plastic has become an extremely precious commodity when recycled since global oil prices skyrocketed. Even multi-grade items that are formed by laminating different grades of plastic together, such as a car bumper, are being disassembled when possible to reclaim the resin.

Other products such as metals have been recycled since man learned how to form metal into spears. It is highly possible that the same piece of metal that was once a spear head used for hunting is still being melted down today to make such things as a door knob.

One of the most accepted and efficient items to recycle is the aluminum can. By recycling aluminum cans, 95% of the energy required to mine bauxite ore, the main ingredient of aluminum, and then manufacture it into a new can is saved. The energy savings is what makes the aluminum can so valuable, and that is how buy-back centers are able to reward recyclers monetarily for each can brought in.

Even landfills have gotten into the act; some are using what is called Alternative Daily Cover, ADC for short, in place of earthen materials. This product that is slowly being accepted is now replacing valuable organic soils to meet the daily requirements of covering solid waste in landfills as required by State and Federal statute. In California ADC has already achieved recognition as a recycled product and counted in percentages of recyclables instead of solid waste helping individual communities meet their 50% recycling goal.

Using ADC increases the efficiency of a landfill by getting more waste into each elevation lift. More importantly using ADC saves valuable earthen materials that produce the grains that feed the world.

ADC is accepted nationally as daily cover in landfills, but has only received beneficial recognition as a recyclable product in California. There the amount that is needed for daily cover is counted as a recyclable, while any excess that is applied by landfill operators is considered solid waste and subject to taxation and reporting.

The following categories are allowed to be used as daily cover in place of earthen material.

In this model the concentration is on ADC made from Construction and Demolition Waste. In Indiana no entrepreneurs have successfully taken up the challenge of building Stand Alone C&D Sorting Facilities to produce ADC in bulk that landfill operators can count on. One of the reasons is that IDEM has not yet recognized ADC produced from C&D as a recycled commodity, nor is there incentive or encouragement by State statute to use ADC over earthen materials. There have been operations that have tried, but to date none have succeeded, mainly for the simple reason that it is not financially profitable the way the current statutes are written or interpreted.

One of the ways to produce ADC is to grind materials that have been discarded from construction and demolition sites. To qualify the materials must be ground to a 6 inch minus, so the material will fill voids in the compacted trash. It is important that the facility operator pay special attention to drywall proportions, so that a proper mixture can be blended in order to limit H2S gases produced at the recycling facility as well as the participating landfill that will be receiving the ADC. The following are allowable ingredients.

Asphalt, Brick, Cardboard, Carpet, Concrete, Drywall, Flooring, Glass, Gravel, Metal, Pallets, Plaster, Plastic, Roofing, Sand, Soil, Vegetative Material that was generated from the construction site, Wiring, Wood

The picture above shows ADC derived from construction & demolition waste applied at a California landfill which is in compliance. This application is counted as a recyclable helping meet the 50% recycling goal.

The above shows C&D material which was applied to a landfill face without being ground. To qualify 95% of the material must be less than 12” and 50% of the material must be less than 6”. The material pictured above would be considered solid waste.

4. What would the benefits be to the State of Indiana if it were to count the tonnage used as ADC made from C&D materials?

The prime benefit would be that Indiana would be much closer to meeting the 50% recycling goal set forth in HEA1240. This objective was to have been met by January 1, 2001 and to date it is just a little over half way there depending on the region of the State. The Act that created Districts, which were formed to encourage recycling, has no penalties for those that choose to ignore it. With budgetary constraints and property tax waning, recycling could be totally left as a burden on small communities that cannot afford to subsidize it, and therefore will fall short of the goal mandated by the State.

Currently any C&D Facility that takes in material to sort, grind and reuse must comply with the same rules that a Transfer Station who accepts solid waste adheres to. To qualify and build a transfer station plus apply and go through the regulatory requirements is an extremely costly process. In addition, a facility is exceptionally hard to site since neighbors within a mile radius are notified of the intention. Once notified, the public’s perception becomes mounds of trash, blowing debris, obnoxious odors, and vermin taking up residence at the facility.

If IDEM would recognize ground C&D waste as a recyclable product and used properly at the landfill, a C&D reclamation facility could easily fit into the existing rule, 329 IAC 11-2-47(b)(3), that allows recycling centers to exist without Transfer Station permits. This would avoid the alarm that often accompanies siting a facility dedicated to recycling.

Recycling Centers that handle municipal and commercial recycling are allowed to operate taking in co-mingled product from many different sources as long as no more than 10% by volume of the material received is disposed of as waste. If processed C&D materials were accepted as a recycled product C&D facilities could easily meet the less than 10% waste requirement as long as facilities were selective and only brought in material that was generated from construction and demolition sites.

Landfill operators could participate by opening up staging yards where C&D would be dumped, sorted, recycled and then ground. The grindings would then meet daily cover requirements. Landfills could also make agreements with offsite recyclers who would be able to perform the operation closer to generation points and bring the material in by semi trailer. Grinding C&D at community yards would condense loads and save a tremendous amount of fuel and emissions. Substituting ADC for soil would cut one of the landfill operator’s costs of digging and hauling earth every day to the landfill. Grinding C&D waste would also save valuable space in landfills thus prolonging the life since roughly 20% of the material deposited is C&D and Green Waste.

As in the first example “when is a material considered recycled” and it was demonstrated by explaining how a corrugated box is recycled, here too is a material that has the possibility of being recycled. Ground up construction material might not be the conventional way one thinks of recycling. However, by substituting what today is a waste product in place of virgin soil, it ultimately fits the definition of replacing the need to use a perfectly good natural resource that will never be recovered to cover up trash. That surely makes it a recyclable in a State that is dedicated to farming.

Properly ground and applied C&D Materials is a winning situation for all. It will take the State of Indiana to recognize an already approved material allowed in our landfills to be counted as a Recycled Commodity.