Jubilee. A question to start off with. Why are you 'sorting' bathroom waste? Surely there is only paper towels in the bin and this would be bagged separately and weighed as a single bagged item. Either those bags are going to trash, or compost, or other designated local use. Let us know, Thanks

Sorry for not being more clear. Yes the client would like to just bag and weigh the bathroom waste (and assume that it is all paper towels without actually sorting through this waste stream). Without actually dumping the bathroom waste and looking through, we of course cant 100% guarantee that it is only paper towel waste. Does assuming that bathroom waste is 100% paper towels waste seen Ok to you?

Jubilee. Thank you, that's a relief. Yes in practice no-one that I've every worked with sorts bathroom waste...we just weigh based on the closed bags. Now, you are quite right, contamination can be a problem. We find that education in the building, signage on each of the towel dispensers, monitoring of the waste bins (in-case you can catch a 'contaminator' in the act), etc, can go a long way to getting a 100% paper towel only bag. If the towels are going to compost then a compostable bag would be a great advantage, but agreed that these can cost.

Actually you will indeed still need to sort materials from the single-stream collection Courtney. Remember that the purpose of the waste audit is not only to assess the overall relative amount of recycled vs non-recycled waste leaving the building - it is also to identify the constituent parts of both streams so as to assess the degree to which you are successfully diverting each type of recycle-able material FROM the trash. Unless you figure out how much newspaper (for example) is going to the curb in your single-stream bin (and in your landfill-directed waste container), you won't know if that represents 10% of the overall newspaper waste leaving the building or 90%. The difference tells you a great deal about the effectiveness of your diversion efforts for that material and can guide changes to your program. Those are the key insights the credit intends to reveal.

Hope that helps,

Dan

Dan,

I have been curious and a bit frustrated by this credit and its requirements. In your experience, how much of a difference does it make to know the exact percentage of the waste that is being DIVERTED/RECYCLED? I understand why you would need to know what each type of waste is that goes to a LANDFILL, but why does it matter with the recycled side? Granted, the extra effort of sorting co-mingled recycled materials gives a neatly packaged percentage, but isn't the intent here to find out the effectiveness waste management program and where to focus efforts? How does having the percentage of all newspaper that was recycled lead to a better recommendation than would knowing the percent of the landfill waste that was newspaper? A facility could be throwing away 100% of its newspaper, but if newspaper is 1% of the landfilled waste, there are better places the facility staff could be spending its time.

It doesn't seem like it would be difficult for someone familiar with the building and its population to determine whether x pounds of a material landfilled is closer to 90% or 10% of the material that is used in the building and thereby make the appropriate determination for the changes to make in a building’s waste management plan. If it really is that hard to determine where the diverted percentage falls in the range or is likely somewhere in the middle, then I would assert that you go after it if it is a significant portion of your total LANDFILLED waste.

Is this extra effort and brain damage worth the extra knowledge?

Thanks!

Sonrisa

Hi Sonrisa,

I think you are asking all the right questions about this credit. Although almost any facility seeking EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. can earn MRc6, its not 'easy' for anyone. Sorting through all that waste is a relatively unpleasant and time-consuming task. For many buildings, a comprehensive waste audit is really informative about diversion successes and opportunities. My experience is that most building operators have only a rough sense of the components of their waste stream, and that understanding can become outdated as tenants and/or space uses change. Understanding both the components of the diverted and non-diverted waste can actually be quite important in terms of allocating resources to improve even a very strong recycling program.

The requirement for sorting diverted waste is, as you've noted, to identify the opportunities that are not being maximized. Diverting 100lbs of newspaper per day is great if you are only generating 110lbs total, but its lousy if you're generating 1000lbs a day. A building operator can certainly guess or estimate those rates, but without auditing diverted waste, they won't know for certain. (Think of this as similar to water or energy metering - most building operators have a general idea as to how much water they use for irrigation or other end uses, but without a meter the just don't know. The waste audit is like attaching a one-time waste meter to your building.)

That being said, for some buildings the knowledge gained will indeed be marginal, and it may simply confirm what you already believed about your recycling program. For those buildings, the value inherent in confirmation (and the LEED point) may not be worth the extra time and effort. And that's exactly why the waste audit, which was formerly a mandatory prerequisite in EBv2.0, became an optional credit in EBOM. Buildings for whom the methodology required by LEED is not productive shouldn't be required to do it, and the current rating system allows for that decision.

And after all that, I will also note that sorting the diverted portion of the waste stream is, in my experience, the faster and more readily-completed portion of this undertaking. Separating cans from bottles or weighing barrels of newspaper is infinitely more pleasant than pulling recycle-ables out of the actual trash. Ugh.

So in sum, to answer your final question, I would say that the extra effort is marginal, the brain damage will largely result from smelling day-old caesar salads and chinese food in the landfill-directed waste rather than the diverted waste, and the extra knowledge gained will, although variable from building to building depending on the sophistication of your waste tracking system, likely be worth that additional marginal effort.

Sorry for the lengthy response. Waste audits fire me up!

Dan

Sounds like you have some great tenants:
Q1. Yes...every thing must be included. If the tenants are sorting their own recycles then they must be able to track what they do with them, Shredded paper usually goes thru a third party contractor, start getting the receipts from your tenants. Where are your tenants dropping the recycles...are they selling the aluminium for example...then get the receipts.
Q2. The purpose of the audit is two fold, the first is to gain the % of each type of recycle in each of the current recycle streams and to see how 'clean' each stream is and then to find the % of the total which is trash.
The second is to create a report showing what the % of trash COULD have been recycled and set up processes to make this happen. Example. Your audit shows that the recycle bins from the tenants contain only 10% of the aluminimum cans from the total stream...as you've found that the trash contains another load of cans which didn't get into the recycle. Your job is then to educate, create new process or 'wave the magic wand' to increase the aluminimum recycle rate to the highest % you can get...hopefully 100%. The trash audit also shows up what items are in the stream that can never be recycled...lets just say for this example that's polystrene. Well you could say that we can't recycle that so it has to stay in the waste stream...but what about going to the tenant who's producing that item and dropping it in the trash...is there a methodology can can be implemented that could encourage the tenant NOT to use that polystrene and then it wouldn't end up in the trash.
My guys LOVE this dumpster dive...

Both New York City and San Francisco provide this type of ComingledA process of recycling materials that allows consumers to dispose of various materials (such as paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal) in one container that is separate from waste. The recyclable materials are not sorted until they are collected and brought to a sorting facility. (all-in) service and, as I understand, for San Francisco the law requires haulers to find a use for 100% of all materials in the waste stream including compostables. Sooo - looks like the intent of LEED has been more than met here and I have the same question as Terry above for how to manage this type of condition.

Terry and Walter, thanks for the question, yes this comes up a lot, especially when districts start co-mingle recycle. The point of the credit of a waste stream audit is to actually measure, as accurate as possible, what is in the total waste stream. While we applaud the co-mingled option, what is in the waste stream itself? While many buildings do an excellent job of recycling we all know that in fact in the waste (trash) stream there is still materials that could go into the recycle. That’s the first reason for doing the audit to point out the fact that there is more ‘action’ that could be undertaken. The second reason is to pinpoint what there is in the trash stream that we cannot recycle right now….let’s take polystyrene as an example. After doing a full count in the audit we could find that the trash stream contains 50% polystyrene. What are we going to do with it?...currently there may be no ‘recycle’ options…can we the create one?....what about finding out who is putting that quantity of polystyrene in the waste…(back when computer monitors arrived in big boxes with lots of packing, one method was to ‘suggest’ that the manufacturer took back the polystyrene blocks)…can we then suggest that different methods of packing be suggested to suppliers so WE don’t have to handle the non-recycle pieces.
The target is to get to Zero Waste…and 100% recycle.
Specifically for the MR c7 (Reuse, recycle or compost 50% of the ongoing consumablesOngoing consumables have a low cost per unit and are regularly used and replaced in the course of business. Examples include paper, toner cartridges, binders, batteries, and desk accessories. waste stream (by weight or volume), you will need the total weight of the recycled/co-mingled and percentage this against the TOTAL weight of trash and recycle leaving the building. Don't forget any weight created from batteries, compost, etc.
Oh...and happy dumpster diving!

Tim, I haven't done it but I have no reason to think that it wouldn't work.

I'm not sure about NC, however we have successfully used the requirements of MRc4 as part of a comprehensive waste reduction strategy for an ID point for a LEED CI project.

Q1: According to the reference guide, in order to achieve MRc6 you must analyze both the disposal waste stream (landfill or incineration) and the diverted waste stream (recycling, composting, reuse). If there is no diverted waste stream, I don't believe you can achieve MRc6.

Q2: Yes, that is appropriate. Hazardous medical waste should not be included in the audit.

I would defer to Brittany, but I am surprised—I think that if 100% of the waste stream is landfilled, you could audit that and earn the credit. However, you do have to identify opportunities for reducing waste going to the landfill, so if you intend to continue landfilling 100% of waste even after the audit, then the effort is wasted and you wouldn't be meeting the credit requirements.

Good point Tristan. I think it is unclear from the credit language in the reference guide to determine if it is acceptable or not to earn MRc6 if you don't have recycling in the project building during the performance. But it seems implied to me.

If the building has no recycling in place before the performance period starts, then theoretically you would have problems documenting MRp2: Solid Waste Management as well.

If the project building is in a location (for instance, in some locations outside of the U.S.) that does not have the infrastructure to support a recycling program, then I would imagine that some leniency would be granted for these credits.

Has anybody out there dealt with this situation before?

Interesting situation and I think both Brittany and Tristan have offered great insights here. As I see it, even with 100% landfill-directed waste, earning MRc6 should be feasible. The concept of a waste audit is fundamentally based on the idea that the first step towards improving diversion rates is to understand your waste stream - that principle should hold whether your current diversion rate is 90% or 0%.

That being said, I think Brittany's point about MRp2 is important. Although EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. does not establish a minimum diversion rate for achieving certification, inherent in MRp2 is an expectation that a diversion program of some sort is in place. In some circumstances (outside the US, as noted) it may be difficult to divert even 5% of waste, but if your SWMP is going to fly, it should detail exactly how you plan to get at least some fraction of your waste stream out of the landfill.

I would also note one clarification on Tristan's response; although the credit does require that you identify opportunities for increased diversion, there is no corresponding requirement that you seize, or even consider seizing, those opportunities. The act of identifying the opportunities is enough, in much the same way that elsewhere in the rating system you are rewarded for simply metering resource consumption. In this instance, the credit is about data collection and analysis, not the actions or outcomes that result. In other words, MRc6 is sort of like metering for your trash. . .

Hope that helps,

Dan

I think this would be acceptable as long as you clearly demonstrate that each separate audit examined all of the waste (either trash or recycling) that was generated at the project building for an equivalent amount of time. So, your collection period should be the same for each audit (i.e. 1 day, 1 week, etc.). As long as you can show that each audit is representative of the total building waste stream, it should be fine.

Wendy, just a quick clarification: the 24-hour collection period is typical and definitely acceptable, however, you must include ALL waste generated in the project building in your audit. Sampling of the waste stream is not allowed in any form. So, you'll need to coordinate a pick-up of all desk-side bins as part of your audit procedure.

Thanks for the clarification. As we should not tell tenants about the audit, any suggestions on dealing with people who might need a document they have recycled? Could we just inform them that we will be collecting all waste for two days - but not state why?

I would want to avoid sending any signal that people should not recycle stuff on the day of the audit.

Do you have any reason to think that this is an issue. Recycling gets picked up from desks weekly so people must be used to seeing their stuff go away. If they are using the recycling bin as a file cabinet I think that's their issue, not yours.

Right now we currently only have weekly deskside trash pickup, not recycling. Deskside recycling is completely up to the tenant. They have to dump their own deskside recycling in the community recycling bins in the break rooms when they decide to. Unfortunately, its not a service we provide.

I know from personal experience that sometimes I'll put something in my deskside recycling and then decide I still need it and take it back out before I dump it, which is kind of why it is a grey area and letting people know might allow them to make sure they have only disposed things they really do not want. As it is something that tenants currently are responsible for it almost feels like a slight invasion of privacy.

I see—I hadn't realized that. If I were in your shoes I would let them know that as a one-time thing, desk-side recycling will be emptied by cleaning staff sometime in the next two weeks—giving them fair warning but probably not causing any change in behavior.

I like that approach. Thanks for working it through with me.

The sample provided in the documentation toolkit on LEEDUser is perfectly fine. Some waste management companies offer very detailed auditing services to help a client really fine tune the strategies needed to improve their recycling rates. Your best guideline is the categories listed on the LEED credit form. These categories are: metal, mixed paper, cardboard, glass, plastics, wet waste, and landscape waste. If your audit addresses these categories, you will be just fine.

In reading the documentation audit report, it states all landscape material and sensitive papers are excluded from the calculation as all of the landscape material is composted and all sensitive papers are recycled. Is it safe to state this for our reports or would we need to weigh our landscape waste material?

This leads into my next question for MRc7, again the sensitive papers/landscape material is 100% recycled or composted, are we required to weigh this or can we exclude it from our calculation?

For MRc6, it's fine to exclude shredded paper and composted landscape waste, since those materials are not collected for disposal by the building maintenance/janitorial staff.

For MRc7, leaving those materials out of your calculations is allowed, but consider your actions carefully, since including shredded paper and landscaping waste may actually help your overall performance level. Some companies that securely manage shredded documents are willing to share the monthly amounts (as long as they aren't asked to divulge any sensitive information) and if your landscaper is hauling landscape waste away from your site to compost somewhere else, they may have some way to measure the total amount.

Sounds to me like this describes items as part of a business process and not items that would be conventionally understood as "waste" generated by the building. If that sounds right, I would say that these items do not need to be tracked. But I would be curious what anyone else thinks?

I agree - this waste is not generated at your project site and therefore would not be included in a waste stream audit.

Working with an HVAC Contractor / Mechanical Engineering firm to LEED their building. They take delivery of equipment packaged in cardboard and on pallets. They install the equipment on customer sites and return all packaging material to the building site for disposal. If we exclude discarded mechanical equipment brought to the site for specialized disposal, do we still need to audit the packaging material?

Second, materials ordered and inventoried within the premises are also packaged in cardboard and shipped on pallets. Would the refuse created from these items be included in the audit?

Third, subtenant is a mattress showroom and warehouse. Receives delivery of mattresses and returns old mattresses to the building for disposal. Is this considered waste attributed to business processes which can be excluded from waste audit?

Thanks.

Kevin, it seems likely that the approach you're suggesting could work. A similar issue often occurs in LEED-NC MRc2: Construction Waste Management, and using the facility diversion rates works there.

Kevin,

The intent of the summary table is to help the building management understand what materials are generated at what rates, and also how effective occupants are at sorting their waste according the buildings separation strategy (presumably it's best when recyclables get into the recycling bags, because the sorting facility has a higher recovery rate/less contamination).

So, my opinion is that using the values that the hauler supplies is not the most useful here (though very useful for documenting MRc7). I would recommend entering the weights and types associated with the trash bags as "Landfill Stream" (even if some of the material gets sorted out and recycled eventually) and the weights and types associated with the recycling bags as "Diversion Stream".

100% of our building waste is sent to for off-site sorting that typically recycles 63% of all waste. In achieving this credit we may propose to our vendor to collect waste for a 24 hour period and then weigh the total. Then our vendor would sort and weigh the amount that could be recycled, and then subtract the recycled amount from the original total to what really is going to the landfill. Does this seem accurate?

I'm not totally sure what you mean by "then subtract the recycled amount from the original total to what really
is going to the landfill."

However, I would be concerned that this approach is not going to be really effective for your project. It sounds like you'd basically be asking your vendor to do what they normally do, and then report the numbers to you. It sounds more like they're auditing their own performance—which doesn't really make sense.

Rather than just using the overall % diversion rate, is their a better approach to this credit? My thought was: if there was 500 lbs sent to the sorting station we would have the vendor seperate the 500 lbs from all other waste and sort it out providing us with an actual weight that is being diverted from the landfill - lets say 200 lbs (recycled), we would then say only 300 lbs is being sent to the landfill and 200 lbs is being recycled.

You need to reports types of waste by weight or volume. There's a bunch more info on this above.

I still don't get why you would want your own vendor to do this for you. Seems like this would be a good chance to see how effective their service is at diverting waste. The whole goal of this credit is to improve waste diversion.

We may choose to do the sorting ourselves onsite to evaluate our vendor, perhaps we could even do it at their facility in our presence. I understand the goal is improve waste diversion but with our current structure, 100% of waste is lumped together and then sorted to recycle everything possible, I guess the one thing that could improve is creating a method to prevent tainting potential recycables.

I think that if you gave the same container of comingledA process of recycling materials that allows consumers to dispose of various materials (such as paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal) in one container that is separate from waste. The recyclable materials are not sorted until they are collected and brought to a sorting facility. waste to 10 different vendors, they would have several different diversion rates. I bet it would cluster around one rate, but there might be some outliers, good and bad. This seems like a chance to check up on how your vendor is doing.

Other things to improve on, as you allude to, might be recycling smaller volume recyclables that get lost, like e-goods, batteries, metals, etc.

Hi Rachael -

You are correct that all of the performance periods need to end at the same time, though this “alignment window” has been changed from 7 days to 30 days (see the Reference Guide Addenda at www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6395).

The performance period for this credit has the same requirements as all other performance periods - it must be at least 3 months in length, but no more than 24 months in length. The actual waste audit you conduct must occur within that performance period, but your waste audit can be of a day's waste, or of a week's waste, or some time period in between. You do not need to audit all the waste produced during the performance period.

A waste audit is a one-time activity that gives you a snapshot of your waste streams and helps you identify methods to improve waste diversion. For credits such as MRc7 (Solid Waste Management - Ongoing ConsumablesOngoing consumables have a low cost per unit and are regularly used and replaced in the course of business. Examples include paper, toner cartridges, binders, batteries, and desk accessories.), on the other hand, you would need to quantify the waste diverted over the entire performance period; this credit focuses on quantifying ongoing performance. MRc6 (Solid Waste Management - Waste Stream Audit), on the other hand, is about analyzing your waste stream in detail and identifying opportunities for improvement. MRc6 is not concerned with your exact level of performance but instead focuses on processes to help you improve diversion rates.

We have been asked to conduct a waste stream audit by the certification team after preliminary review (consequently, after the performance period).

My queries:

1) How does this affect the performance period if we do conduct one now?

2) Will it be acceptable to conduct one even if it is after the performance period for all other credits?

3) Do we need to move all the performance periods in order to get this point? Note: earliest credits and pre-requisites related to energy and atmosphere started Jan 2009 and closed Oct 2010, therefore the end of performance period for this intended credit if ever, will be more than 30 days compared to end of performance periods of the rest of the submitted documents.

Hoping for advise from anyone.

For this particular credit, you're allowed to conduct a new audit if requested by the review team in your preliminary review comments. You do not need to adjust any performance periods in your application. Just perform the new audit according to the instructions in your preliminary review and provide the revised documentation in your resubmittal.

I'm surprised to not see other Hospitality sector buildings on here...Our client is a Convention Center with an irregular waste stream that is based on show activity. Would you suggest we conduct the audit when the building is essentially unoccupied (with exception of staff) OR when there is a show in the building... if you recommend the latter, waste stream fluctuates before, during and after the show so would we want to capture the highest volume time? It is difficult to determine a "representative" set. Thank you!

So the good book says 'during the performance period', but when is that for you?. I suppose one could take the initiative and suggest that the audit is in fact completed when there is trash for auditing. This is where the book doesn't fit the actual operation of the building. My suggestion is to complete two audits.

Hi Barry, the performance period issue is OK but you brought up a good point that got me thinking on the 2 separate audits. The building has 2 concourses, for LEED purposes its one building, but for show activity its two. That said, the waste streams are unique and independent of each other during the time we are planning to conduct the audit. Could we justify doing two audits, 1 for each concourse? We would ofcourse follow some of the other suggestions posted here as to how we make this justifiable. Doing this would give the most accurate and representative data, which is the goal and the intent.

Each Concourse...not really. I'm assuming that the waste stream/recycling is in fact held in one holding area until pickup, that is a single recycling compactor, single trash bin, etc. You already said that it's one building for the purposes of LEED, don't give the GBCI room to manouver as to why you want to do two audits!!!!

There are 14 compactors and 6 open tops evenly divided among the 2 dock areas, which are on opposite sides of the building corresponding with the 2 concourses. Pick ups are done on separate days or with a fleet of trucks depending on if the show is taking up both concourses. So, since we are doing at a time where there are 2 separate shows and individual waste streams would this be justifiable

OK, I see that, but in reality if you have designed/written a comprehensive 'waste policy', then one, two or three locations shouldn't matter, they 'should' all be recycling at the same rate and therefore the two audits that you undertake 'should' have the same results. What may vary is that some shows will produce more of one type of trash item than another.
Ok, so do the two audits in the two separate shows...if the numbers are different be really clear as to why they are different.