Results Clear for Mixed C&D Plant Operator

Kurtz Bros. Inc., Independence, Ohio, has spent the spring and summer of 2009 churning through piles of mixed C&D debris inventory with its upgraded mixed C&D sorting system.

The company’s Tim Lee reports that Kurtz Bros. has spent much of 2009 working through inventory of mixed C&D loads brought in by area contractors while also seeing increased flow into its yard in the summer compared to the spring.

The summer material flow has not been consistent, he adds, saying that some weeks truck traffic flowing in is strong while the next week traffic drops off considerably.

The company’s mixed C&D system, which includes automated equipment made by Sherbrooke OEM and General Kinematics plus sorting lines allowing up to 20 sorters to work at once, is helping the company recycle approximately 87 percent of infeed as recyclable wood, aggregate or metal, as well as some paper and plastic.

A General Kinematics de-stoner is positioned to handle 8-inch-plus material in the Kurtz Bros. plant, and, according to Lee, is yielding clean streams of recyclable wood and of brick and block that is turned into recyclable material by a crushing subcontractor.

Before it installed its mixed C&D system in 2007 and 2008, Kurtz Bros. would accept mixed C&D debris for an inert landfill it operates. Its attempts to divert materials for recycling sorting only by hand or with an excavator were yielding only 9 and 10 percent diversion rates, Lee estimates.

Kurtz Bros. (the subject of the story “Panoramic View” in the May-June 2009 edition of Construction & Demolition Recycling) makes a variety of landscape supply products, some of which are yielded by its mixed C&D plant.

The company is a bulk supplier to Cleveland area landscapers of soils, composts, mulches and crushed stone and brick products.

Vito Monteleone of the Davey Commercial Grounds Management location in North Royalton, Ohio, says commercial customers and institutional clients such as the Cleveland Clinic and the Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland are enthusiastic buyers of recycled-content landscaping products.

“Any time they can promote something that is green or sustainable, that is a big plus for many of our customers,” says Monteleone.

Davey Commercial Grounds Management works with Kurtz Bros. Inc. as both a supplier of material to its mixed C&D and mulch production operations as well as being a buyer of bulk landscaping products.

Lee and Monteleone and Kurtz Bros. Inc. Marketing Coordinator Diane Kurtzman all say that the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system has affected the way they are asked to do business, including boosting the demand for recycled-content products.

Kurtzman and Monteleone remark that requests for recycled-content landscaping materials are likely to increase as a LEED for Landscapers system begins to be implemented and take hold.