Building for the
J by Recycling
Industrial Materials
Industrial materials, such as coal ash, foundry sand, construction and demolition materials, slag,
and gypsum, are valuable products of industrial processes. These materials have many of the
same properties as the virgin materials they replace. Putting these commodities into productive
use saves resources and contributes to a sustainable future. Following are examples:
Comcast Center — Located in Philadelphia, PA, the 1.2 million square foot, 58-story
skyscraper is owned and developed by Liberty Property Trust with Comcast Corporation
as the lead tenant. Through deconstruction of an existing 9-story building that housed the
Philadelphia Public Defenders Office, Liberty was able to achieve a 90 percent recycling
rate. Discarded oil tanks located under the building were cleaned for reuse to store
captured stormwater. This effort removed the potential source of water contamination
by old oil tanks and now contributes to water savings. Energy and fuel are saved from
removal efforts and the tanks are kept out of a landfill. Combined, the tanks hold up to a
total of 12,000 gallons of stormwater for reuse as irrigation water, saving 45,000 gallons
of fresh drinking water every year. In addition, 90 percent, or 5.4 million tons, of the
construction waste and debris generated throughout the project will be recycled. The
new building also contains recycled slag in its concrete, (www.libertyproperty.com)
Dundas Residence -- This project, located in Prescott, AZ, was designed by
architect Michael Frerking and constructed by P.M. Taylor Development. It is a high
mass, passive heated and cooled home that utilizes the mass as heat and cool storage.
The exterior wall is a 20" thick "poured soil cement." At the center of each exterior wall
is a 4" rigid foam thermal break, giving the wall an R value exceeding R-20. The walls
utilize an ultra high fly ash (type F) "6 sack mix." This combines 2 sacks of Portland
cement with 4 sacks of fly ash per yard. Compressive strengths exceed 2400 psi. The
Portland cement use is reduced by 67 percent with the substitution of the fly ash; other
future projects will yield as much as 80 percent reduction, (www.michaelfrerking.com)
Naval Facilities Engineering Command Building 33 --The developers of
Building 33, located in the historic Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., used
an existing building as the foundation for its new facility. The renovation of the
original open-bay factory building was completed in 1998. The new building houses
the Headquarters offices of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. In addition to
using a pre-existing structure, the project incorporated sustainable building features
such as ceiling tiles containing recycled newsprint, concrete and concrete masonry
units (blocks) using fly ash, and drywall containing recycled gypsum. Bricks also were
recovered during demolition activities, cleaned up, and reused on the site. (http://www.
eere. energy.gov/fem p/highperformance/overview.cfm?ProjectlD=495)
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Menomonee Valley Industrial Center and Community Park
Project — The 1,200 acre Menomonee Valley revitalization is the largest
Brownfields cleanup in Wisconsin history. The revitalization leveraged $700
million, created 4,000 new jobs, and built 60 acres of park space and 4 miles
of trails. The Valley's redevelopment is a nationally recognized model of
public-private partnership and a major civic achievement for Milwaukee.
This project used crushed concrete for building foundations and roadway
subgrade, and broken concrete for subsurface transmissive layer within the
Stormwater Park. In addition, the County Stadium recycling effort will result
Photo by Menomonee Valley Partners, inc. in 95 percent of the old ballpark being used again. The Industrial Center and
Community Park Project was the redevelopment of a 140 acre Brownfields
site within the Valley. The entire site was raised 6 to 10 feet out of the floodplain. Various types of industrial materials
from the Valley were used in the redevelopment, including foundry sand from the neighboring Falk foundry and
nearly 900,000 cubic yards of fill from the reconstruction of the adjacent freeway. The photo shows sunflowers
growing in the new Menomonee Valley Park, (www.renewthevalley.org)
Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. United States Courthouse — This facility,
located in Miami, FL, was designed by Arquitectonica International (ARQ) and
Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum, Inc. (HOK). The 546,000 square foot project
includes 14 district courtrooms, two special proceedings courtrooms, and
office space for the U.S. Clerk of Court, U.S. Marshal Service, U.S. Attorney,
U.S. Probation and Federal Public Defender. The design mirrors the American
Judicial System by incorporating three distinct elements: A pair of twin
towers which represent the two opposing sides of each argument pierced
'_ by a singular and transparent glass volume which represents the overriding
truth and justice. Specifications required that construction materials be
recycled during the demolition of the existing building and construction of
the new facility. This resulted in the diversion of an estimated 2,600 tons of material from Florida landfills. Facility
materials included 25 percent maximum content fly ash concrete, which helped keep the structure as thin as possible
and also resist hurricane and blast forces. In addition, this project incorporated numerous energy efficient and other
environmental features, (www.arquitectonica.com andwww.hok.com)
Woodrow Wilson Bridge Replacement Project — Located on the
Capital Beltway on the southern edge of Washington, D.C., this project focused
its environmentally friendly practices on the recycling of construction and
demolition materials from the pre-existing Woodrow Wilson Bridge (WWB). All
of the asphalt (250,000 cf) on the old bridge deck was milled and recycled and
all of the structural and bascule steel (8,000 tons) was recycled. An estimated
60,000 tons of concrete in the old WWB is being used to create artificial fish
reefs in the Chesapeake Bay and an additional 12,500 tons of concrete piers
! and foundations were used on site for haul road construction, backfill, and
, ,,„„„,, ,aM^,CCM,,c,, erosion and sediment control. In addition, the wash water and concrete waste
coming from multiple on-site batch plants, tens of thousands of concrete
trucks, and large concrete hopper barges were collected and recycled. A large portion of the wash water settles out
turbidity issues, mixed with C02 to balance the pH, and then sprayed on Project haul roads to allay dust. The project
also instituted a multi-office recycling program to support the thousands of professionals working on the project daily.
(www.wilsonbridge.com)
EPA530-F-07-020b
September 2007
www.epa.gov/osw
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