More than 95 percent of waste was diverted from landfills in the demolition and reconstruction of Pennsylvania’s Allentown Turnpike Service Plaza, by High Construction. Low-VOC content materials, waterless urinals, low-consumption toilets with senor operated flushometers, and aerated sensor operated facets are some of the sustainable features of the new facility.

Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot, one of the first environmentalists, once defined conservation as the “application of common sense.” He would be pleased by the common sense being applied today in the form of materials recycling in construction.

Take for example High Construction’s recent reconstruction of a Pennsylvania Turnpike plaza in Allentown, Pa.: “Everything that could be recycled was recycled,” says John Burkholder, senior project superintendent for High Construction.

Concrete and stone facade from the old plaza were crushed and used as fill to bring the site up to grade and as under-slab material for the new building. That saved on hauling and reduced the need for virgin materials. That in turn saved money and energy.

Copper pipes, the metal from old food service equipment, structural steel, and metal studs were saved for recycling. Wood retrieved from the demolition was recycled for mulch. Gypsum drywall was recovered so it could be recycled into new wallboard. Re-use like that reduces disposal charges and saves landfill space.

Though the plaza wasn’t an official LEED green building project, Burkholder says the Turnpike Commission wanted to meet LEED standards.

One of the goals of the U.S. Green Building Council—the body that promulgates LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards—is to recycle or salvage between 50 and 75 percent of non-hazardous construction and demolition debris.

The same approach was applied to the recent construction of High Concrete’s maintenance facility in Denver, Pa., which was designed by Greenfield Architects Ltd., Lancaster, Pa., to meet the LEED ‘silver’ standard. The waste from the construction process—what little of it there was—was saved for recycling.

“The construction waste management plan required source-separated, meaning on-site separation of, concrete, gypsum, wood, and other recyclable construction materials. This was more cost-effect than commingling recycled materials and hauling them to a sorting facility,” says Barry Bauer, senior project manager for High Construction. “On jobsites where space is limited, commingling recycled materials may be a good option, but we had plenty of space on this site for storage of numerous recycling containers.” The total construction waste diverted from landfills weighed in at 45.5 tons.

It’s estimated that more than 325 million tons of recoverable construction and demolition materials are generated annually nationwide. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the recycling market for construction and demolition debris is one of the fastest growing.

The nonprofit Construction Materials Recycling Association says more than 140 million tons of concrete are recycled annually in the U.S., making it the most recycled material by weight. Gypsum from drywall is more difficult to recycle than concrete but can be used for new wallboard and also as an ingredient in cement, applied to soils to improve drainage and plant growth, and as a composting additive.

Chris Edie, president of Edie Waste in Columbia, Pa., the waste hauler for the High Concrete project, sees the momentum for recycling growing but notes the impetus is coming from the desire to go green for its own sake and from government mandates rather than the innate growth of commercial markets. “It has nothing to do with the end markets,” he says, “but it’s definitely moving full force ahead.”

Burkholder agrees construction recycling is definitely becoming more accepted and more common. Bauer says, “Soon you’ll see all projects going this way.”