CDRA’s Turley offers 2020 assessment of C&D recycling
To the surprise of no one, 2020 has been a challenging year for the recyclers of construction and demolition materials.
The pandemic started taking over almost every aspect of people’s lives right after the Construction & Demolition Recycling Association’s (CDRA) Annual Meeting in Las Vegas in mid-March. By the end of the month, most construction activity was either slowed or stopped, which shut off the pipeline of materials to most C&D recyclers of all types.
In New York City, for example, Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down virtually all construction and left it that way for months, severely constraining the city’s industry and leaving C&D recyclers with almost nothing coming in. In addition, there were challenges to running a recycling operation, especially for mixed C&D recycling, because of all the pickers pulling out materials while standing next to the moving belt – they were too close to each other for social distancing requirements. And if one of them caught the coronavirus, be assured that none of them would show up for work the next day.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. Some states, such as Ohio and Texas, kept their road projects going and benefited as the reduced traffic on the roads made it safer and easier to work. Furthermore, it was all outdoor work, so it was deemed safe to continue working, even during the dark early days of the pandemic. Hence, aggregate recyclers in those states and many others that continued road projects continued to work at a high level.
Another effect of the coronavirus is an uptick in the number of waste and recycling companies that have done well despite the pandemic and are looking to purchase C&D recycling, landfill and related assets. These companies are very aggressive in their searches right now throughout the entire country and should see some M&A activity in C&D in the coming months.
End markets
Just because incoming materials to C&D recycling plants sometimes slowed down to a trickle didn’t mean the end markets for those materials dried up, as well. Indeed, some markets jumped, including the mulch market, because everyone was stuck at home, so do-it-yourself landscaping really took off, driving up demand. This also helped aggregate recyclers who provided specialty products, such as paver sand.
There were also reports the OCC (old corrugated cardboard) market took off because retail and commercial – the usual common sources of cardboard – had slowed down so much, meaning less cardboard was generated. OCC from residential routes and construction projects is usually looked down upon because it is so dirty compared to what you might get from a Target or a grocery store, but those latter sources were very slow, so there was also interest in whatever C&D recyclers could provide.
Challenges still remain for many C&D end products in most parts of the country, especially wood and C&D fines from mixed C&D recycling facilities. The use of C&D biomass continues to decrease because of pressure from the low-priced fossil fuel natural gas, and not all C&D wood is of a quality to be used as mulch. The traditional market for C&D fines as an alternative daily cover at landfills has been trending down for years because of concerns of hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) production – the rotten egg smell – from the fines. The CDRA has funded research to help both of these markets by showing in the lab that using biochar made from C&D wood, even the low-level B and C woods, and mixing it with the fines, would attenuate the H2S generation in the landfill setting – perhaps opening up that market further in the future. After proving this in the lab, we will soon conduct a large-scale experiment of this new end product in a landfill setting.
Speaking of biochar, it remains an intriguing and potentially expanding end product for C&D recyclers. A great example is the Aries Clean Energy plant in Tennessee, which can take in a variety of industrial wastes to make green energy and biochar. While Aries-type plants, which rely on a downdraft gasification system, are certainly in the future for C&D recyclers to provide end products, another system also popular within the industry is the simpler, less expensive updraft biochar production system. The use of this type of less-expensive model allows the reduction of C&D wood by as much as 90 percent while providing a saleable end product.
An up-and-coming product that uses recycled asphalt shingles is for dust control on gravel roads. The shingles are mixed with an aggregate product to be placed on rural roads and parking lots, and it greatly reduces the dust generation to next to nothing.
Looking ahead
So what will 2021 bring for C&D? Like everything else, no one has a real clue. And, like every other industry, it will depend on if there is a vaccine created quickly and widely distributed in order to help bring back the economy.
If so, the U.S. was on course for a record economic year in 2020 before the coronavirus struck. Many say that will start up again if we get the virus under control with sound governmental economic policies in place. That could improve the overall construction market beyond just the raging single-family housing sector, which helps C&D recyclers.
However, there is great concern on that future right now. The first is anecdotal, as CDRA members have seen current demolition and construction projects get going again, which means they got busy again. However, they see over the horizon that, because of economic uncertainty, many planned projects have been put on hold and may not proceed.
To support this, the respected American Institute of Architects’ monthly Architecture Billings Index (ABI) rose in September to a score of 47, up 7 points from August’s score of 40. The ABI is a leading economic indicator of construction activity in the U.S. and reflects a nine- to 12-month lead time between architecture billings and construction spending nationally, regionally and by project type. A score above 50 represents an increase in billings from the previous month, while a score below 50 represents a contraction.
In summation, we aren’t out of the woods yet.
William Turley is executive director of the Construction & Demolition Recycling Association. He can be contacted at turley@cdrecycling.org.