When a natural disaster like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina leaves in its wake millions of cubic yards of mixed debris, recycling becomes far more complicated than usual, according to Mark Williams of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Williams described his experience working with the Mississippi DEQ in Katrina’s aftermath at a session entitled “When Disasters Strike: Recycling Demolition Debris and Reusing Building Materials,” held during the 25th National Recycling Coalition (NRC) Annual Congress held recently in Atlanta.
Katrina brought a 30-foot storm surge to some places in Mississippi, doing more than $125 billion in damage, taking more than 230 lives and leaving more than 44.5 million cubic yards of debris behind. The debris field included everything from appliances, cars, tanks and wood to hazardous materials. “Everything you could put in someone’s life was demolished,” Williams said.
One of the biggest issues that complicated recycling efforts post-Katrina was the presence of hazardous materials. In many cases, the owners of the materials or tanks that contained them could not be traced, complicating the cleanup process, Williams said. Another problem was that hazardous materials were mixed in with the other recyclable debris. The DEQ set up many temporary staging sites for debris collection and recycling, but its efforts were hampered by several factors, chief among them being the shear volume of debris, Williams said. The agency was also under tremendous pressure to clean up quickly. “Recycling was perceived to slow everything down,” Williams said.
Williams mentioned several things that would facilitate post-disaster recycling. He said he would like to see pre-disaster contracts with local governments encourage the recycling of disaster debris. He also said recyclers who specialize in handling disaster relief would be helpful, as would economic incentives for utility companies to use products from recycled disaster debris.
Brad Guy of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa., and the Building Materials Reuse Association, addressed attendees on his involvement in a project to explore deconstructing some of the homes still standing in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
According to Guy, there are still somewhere between 10,000 to 50,000 homes yet to be demolished. Guy advocates deconstruction for these buildings instead of traditional demolition because while deconstruction might take more time and cost more than traditional demo, it can also divert large amounts of valuable material from the waste stream.
Guy said lumber in particular is a valuable post-storm commodity. Deconstruction could also better serve the historical interests of the area by helping to preserve the historical value of the area better than traditional demolition, he said.
Elise Hunter of the EPA Region 9 addressed attendees about the LifeCycle Building Challenge, which strives for building design with deconstruction and material salvage in mind. She sited the Chartwell School in Seaside, Calif., which employed several design-for-deconstruction elements in its construction. She said all the interior walls of the school are movable partitions, allowing for easy renovation without any real demolition or deconstruction. The LEED Platinum certified school also used alternative framing that used less board feet of lumber than conventional framing in its design. Chartwell also used nail-free framing held in place by clips.