Materials and Resources Conservation

Did you know that construction and demolition wastes constitute about 40% of the total waste stream in the United States?

Requirement: Reduce landfill waste and reuse any usable components to minimize environmental impacts. This credit area includes the post-construction storage and collection of recyclables, diversion of construction waste from the landfill, specifying, purchasing and installing materials with at least 10% recycled content, and using at least 10% regional materials in the construction.

Storage and Collection of Recyclables:
There is a CLU commitment to reducing and segregating our waste streams on campus.

Each building occupant is responsible to sort their trash (eg. food scraps, food containers, plastic packing materials and styrofoam, etc.) from their recycle items (typically all paper products, plastic bottles, clean cans, and cardboard) in their offices or classroms. Each office was provided with a small personal desktop trash can, and a standard blue recycle container. Institutional housekeepers only pick up and collect the recycle containers from the offices. Centralized trash containers are located conveniently about the building. Personal trash can be emptied into any one of the centralized containers. Centralized recycle containers are also located conveniently about the building.

Construction Waste Management:
CLU and HMH Construction, Inc. developed a waste management plan to recycle or divert at least 50% of the construction and demolition debris from disposal using local facilities and waste management firms. Ventura County has the Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center, which is a regional recycling facility run by Waste Management Inc. located in Simi Valley. This facility accepted all the comingled waste from the Swenson Center construction, and separated the recyclable materials from those that had to be landfilled. The use of regional commercial recycling facilities typically produces waste diversion rates of 80% or better. Concrete waste materials and concrete demolition debris was sent to Curtis Sand and Gravel for recycling into aggregate base.

10% Recycled Content (use materials with post-consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer recycled content):

The requirement was to use materials with recycled content such that the sum of the post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer content constitutes at least 10% (based on cost) of the total value of materials in the project. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing components and specialty items such as elevators are not included in the calculation. Post-consumer material is defined as waste material generated by households or by commercial, industrial and institutional facilities as end-users of the product.

Pre-consumer material is defined as material diverted from the waste stream during the manufacturing process.

The Swenson Center achieved a combined recycled content for the construction materials of 18.4%!

Regional Materials – 20% Extracted, Processed and Manufactured Regionally:
The requirement was to use building materials and products that are extracted or manufactured within 500 miles of the project site for a minimum of 10% of the total materials value of the building. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing components and specialty items such as elevators are not included in the calculation.

22.8% of the building materials and products used for the Swenson Center were extracted or manufactured within 500 miles of the project!

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