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Most of us recycle a lot of our garbage. We separate plastics and glass and pile up cardboard to keep it from piling up the landfill, but what about construction materials? A county project could set a new standard.
Progress generates a lot of garbage. Roughly one-fourth of the junk that ends up in Utah landfills comes from construction and demolition. But Salt Lake County plans to waste less and recycle tons more.
It's a different kind of demolition than Salt Lake County has done before. John Bergen, the Magna Library project manager, said, "It's not just being dumped into the landfill, it's being thought of in a green way, earth-friendly way, and it gets used properly."
Past practice was to haul it off to the landfill; now crews sort through concrete blocks, wood and glass. Brian Gibson, a Removal Service Franchise partner, said, "Between 50 and 60 percent of what we pick up, we recycle or donate. So we're always looking at how we're going to dispose of things properly."
The county hired the cleanup crew to clear an abandoned commercial and residential site in Magna where the county is planning to build a new library. They found all kinds of stuff left behind. The library will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, which means it meets a tough green standard for demolition and construction. That's the standard for all county construction in the future.
"It isn't an extra cost to the county, it's an added benefit to help us achieve a cleaner environment," Bergen said.
From that site alone they've already diverted 20 tons of garbage from the landfill, and they expect to send off 35 to 40 trucks by the time the job is done.
The company charges the county $10,000 for the job. It makes money on the metal but pays to recycle other materials. "We are a throw away society. We pick up so many things that are still in good shape, so it right away became a focus of ours to keep stuff out of the landfill, and it's good business," Gibson said.
Today, saving 75 percent of the demolition debris is a rarity. In the future it may be the norm.
As for the new Magna public library, the county will hold a public open house in the next couple of months to talk about the design.
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
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