EBOM 2009 MRc7: Solid Waste Management—Ongoing Consumables

Lets look at basics, if you are recycling then thank you, and I know sometimes these actions aren't that easy to quantify especially over a longer period. Like most of the LEED credits 'provable actions' speak loudly. Now I'm assuming that your recycling to some central 'point'....a vendor perhaps. Is there any chance of getting a reply from them accepting your recycled cartridges....if not at least track yourself how many cartridges you are sending and to what address. (Perhaps start looking for a vendor who will be able to reply to you...as this piece of paper will work wonders with the GBCI)
Of course I'm thinking that you have more than 3 cartridges to recycle (Staples do a 'buy back' and issue a receipt for the 3 a day you take in). Failing both of those I would: 1. Track every cartridge, date and address sent to and/or 2. find a vendor to work with you (Vendor could be a donation place...school for example). I hope that this helps.

Thank You Very Much for your quick response. The problem we are running into is, that roughly 35-40% of our purchases are these ink cartridges. On the spreadhseet tracking our purchases, they are not meeting any of the criteria, but we do recycle them. Is there a way to account for this, to improve our percentage in 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. category?

Wow, what are your guys printing...War and Peace each day??. OK, If you have no vendor recycling reports of any sort (and please check that there is nowhere where you can recycle and get a document of some sort) then you will have to count (by weight or volume) to your best method possible (and I would include lots of photos) and provide this to the USGBC (by filling in the form with the total amount...weight or volume...that you have recycled in the performance period) The term the USGBC use is "hauler reports or similar RELIABLE data". Explain clearly in supporting narratives why you have no 'hauler reports' and indicate what methodology that you chose to prove that your data is reliable and to the absolute best knowledge, where all these ink cartridges are ending up. (Think of it as closing the loop) Add in copies of the boxes that the original cartridges came in that show that they can be recycled and that the boxes contain details of recycling methodologies (and of course you are using one of these methodologies) Add log details of how they are collected and how and where you store them prior to bulking them up for posting or whichever method you are using (FedEx, UPS, etc)
I suggest that you contact the manufacturers and point out that tracking the recycled unit would be of great help to you and to LEED (and those that follow behind you)
Great project...good luck

Lauren - which rating system / version of the form are you using (the form version will be noted near the bottom)?

Anyway, I believe most version are set up so that you do not list non-diverted trash in the table. The first box for total waste is intended to include all waste (to landfill + recycled + composted etc), and then the table is used to report out the subset that is diverted. Basically, it assumes you are using some other tool to sum up the total amount generated.

I don't think that will fly Kristen. LEED allows projects the option of volume or weight because neither metric is really perfect, and because tracking by weight (which seems on balance the better measure) is very difficult for many projects which do not have appropriate scales available. But as you said - the apples to apples comparison doesn't work if you are compacting one of your streams and not the others. LEED is less worried about the actual displacement of air/space resulting from your waste than in the relative amounts of waste vs recycling. So your original assumption was accurate - you should compare your loose recyclable volume vs a calculated loose trash volume. And make sure you clearly document your method for that calculation! Hope that helps,

Dan

That's a tough one Paul - in general the rule is that either weight or volume needs to be measured, particularly because basing your calculations on an assumed fill rate won't allow for useful tracking if/when your program improves or decreases performance (for the shredded paper). I wonder if there is any way to have the hauler perform even a very rough measurement of fullness when they collect? Either a visual check or, if they can't open the bins, some kind of measurement using a yardstick slid into the drop-slot on the top? Short of that, I think the next best thing would be using an assumed fill rate, but one that is generated by actual measurements from a sampling of bins. I have a project that estimated bag weight in this fashion - rather than weighing every bag, they weighed a sample of bags x times per week to produce a multiplier. They updated that multiplier every month to ensure it was reflecting changes in their program. An imperfect solution, but better than pretending that no shredded paper is being diverted! Hope this helps a little.

Dan

Jean, did you review the earlier discussion on this topic? That's a good starting place.

Jean
You've hit on a weak area here..basically do what you want but have method to show the reviewer that you've completed the program. Much of this will come from how much you're disposing of...in a very large complex there are several 'recycling companies' that deal only with batteries (they produce a wonderful report showing all the breakdown of mercury, cadmiumA naturally-occurring element and source of pigments that were once a staple in paints, but now is largely phased out in architectural coatings except for certain specialty products. High exposure to cadmium can cause a variety of health problems, including kidney damage., etc...but of course that type of service costs!). If you are small complex then there may be only a couple of handfulls per month. Bag them and take these to your local recycling centre, they 'may' give you a receipt, but it's doubtful. So in this situation just go ahead and record on the recycling numbers what you consider the correct amount of weight. At the end of the day you really should be commended for at least making the effort to quantify the total. Regards

The minimum performance period for MRc7 is three months; for your submittal, you won't be required to submit any more than that. However, tracking waste/recycling is the kind of thing that is so integral to long-term sustainable operations that your goal should be to create a tracking system that makes it cost-effective to do so over a much longer period. Hope that helps.

I believe that even in the olden days of EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. v2008, the template encouraged projects to break out materials which were diverted, but did not require it. Because commingled recycling has become even more commonplace since then, many projects have a single number for 'recycled material' that represents all or many of the items listed above. In many instances, however, things like food waste and toner cartridges are collected separate from the commingled waste stream, and therefore a separate figure may be available. But you certainly do need to account for all of the materials listed in either the recycled or conventionally-disposed side of the equation.

One idea is to use a dumpster that includes technology measuring how full it is. If I'm not mistaken, these can even be set up to notify the hauler when they need to be picked up. Check with Waste Management, for example.

Or, what about making this the job of someone inside the building—to inspect the containers regularly? Sounds unlikely to me, but just trying to brainstorm some ideas for you.

Tristan's latter suggestion is exactly what I recommend to my clients in this situation. We actually paint lines inside the dumpster to denote 25%, 50%, and 75% full and to make the visual estimation easier. Then a custodian is tasked with checking each dumpster preceding the pickup and recording the fullness of the dumpster on a tracking sheet. It's not a perfect system, but a reasonable method for getting a relatively accurate figure without requiring drastic steps.

Another option may be to work with the waste hauler so that they only pick up trash or recycling that is at least 75% full. This helps in two ways, 1. tracking weight is more accurate and 2. keeps the cost down by only paying lift fees for dumpsters that actually need to be emptied. This works well if you are large building and dont have an issue with trash sitting for long periods of time.

Just a thought.

Great thought Wendy, however most clients find that this 'ad hoc' method of pickup actually costs them more rather than the "8am every Monday morning" as per a year long contract. Worth checking with each individual hauler before getting this setup.

LEED pretty much follows established industry norms with its recycled-content definitions. These are in turn regulated by FTC. Usually they start with the manufacturer, though.

Does the manufacturer claim that these cartridges or furniture contain recycled content with the reused parts? I would guess that they don't, and if they don't, I wouldn't try to argue it with LEED.

However, your question seems more oriented toward purchasing (MRc1 and MRc2), but MRc7 and MRc8 are about waste management. If the cartridges and furniture are sent back to the manufacturers for refurbishing or reuse, that would help with these credits.

Tristan - You are right. I was referring to MRc1 and MRc2. The manufacturers does not claim anything currently, but would like to be able claim something for reusing the material. From what you've said, it does not appear they can claim recycled content and therefore, we will not be able to add this toward MRc1.

However, I will note the reuse for MRc7. Thanks for recognizing my credit error and helping to clarify.

Yes and yes Andrew. The intent of LEED is that you establish the tracking program before the performance period and then tracking becomes part of your buildings operating practices for the life of the building. The performance period is merely a sample of that tracking. In terms of metrics, you can vary metrics between credits - the specifics you note are quite common given the nature of OC's and DG's. Good luck with your waste program.

Jordan - This is pretty much spot-on. There's no good way to track this figure. My experience is that reviewers are aware of this and put the focus on ensuring that there is a legitimate program in place to effectively divert batteries. There's just not much else one can do given the nature of the item.

Or one could use the amount of batteries bought as a proxy for how many are going to be disposed of one way or another.
That assumes, of course, a closed system: one in which batteries from outside don't come into the building and purchased ones do not leave.

However, it's not an all-bad assumption to at least get a sense.

Hello:
We have a battery recycling program where all tenants have been given battery bins, which are picked up when full and taken to be recycled.

However, without gaining the Tenants' purchasing data-which is why we are not pursuing MRC1-how are we to estimate diversion performance without knowing what is coming in?

Thank you.

You've hit the nail on the head Dana - There's no good way to do this. GBCI reviewers know this, and their focus is on ensuring that there is a meaningful battery collection program in place. One step I've advised my clients to take is to try to collect numbers as to the weight of batteries collected from each tenant each month (or, in your case, the regularity of collection of full bins) to try to gauge annual battery waste amounts. Then if they see a drastic reduction in that amount over time, they can follow up with the tenant to see if the program may be coming up short somehow. Honestly, there's just no viable way to generate a sound estimate for diversion performance beyond something rough like this. Hope that helps.

Dan:
Thank you for your response. Oddly enough, I am responding to the GBCI reviewer's technical advice. They acknowledged that we have a battery recycling policy in place, however, we did not describe how we estimated our performance.
That is good advice, to track the weight of the batteries. We will implement.
Thanks again.

This is a question that lots of folks have struggled with and I can offer some insight, if not a definitive answer. My understanding is that the USGBC/GBCI hasn't provided formal guidance on this issue and maintains the prerogative to determine appropriateness based on the specifics of an individual project. That being said, it is my experience that MRc7 particularly (as well as MRc8 and MRc9) can legitimately be pursued using a campus-wide number. Many of the campuses I work with have this problem - multiple buildings are served on a route, and there is no measurement technology on the trucks to assess the load from a single building. If your campus is relatively small and homogenous (in terms of building type and likely waste) the GBCI is more likely to be sympathetic. On the other hand, an alternative approach (with a higher degree of certainty about GBCI ruling) is to implement your own waste volume tracking protocol - effectively finding a way to have your staff estimate the volume of each material leaving the building before each pickup. We have implemented a similar approach at a number of buildings and after overcoming a bit of bellyaching from the custodial staff who had to look in the dumpsters every day and write down the % fullness, it's worked quite nicely. (Final note: MRc6 is, in contrast to MRc7-9, never earnable on a campus-wide basis. Waste audits must be building-specific.) Hope that helps!

Thanks Dan!

I was wondering for the situation where they had written the % fullness from the dumpster, how did they determine which went to the dump and which was recycled, composted, etc?

Ah, Richard - That's a whole new level of trouble! In our situation, we had occupant material separation so the staff recorded information for the recycling dumpster, the compost bin, and the landfill-directed dumpster separately. If you have only a single bin where ALL facility waste is collected and then sorted off-site, my suggestion isn't going to be helpful and I think you are back to using a campus-wide number. You might consider submitting a CIRCredit Interpretation Ruling. Used by design team members experiencing difficulties in the application of a LEED prerequisite or credit to a project. Typically, difficulties arise when specific issues are not directly addressed by LEED information/guide early in your certification process to confirm that this will be viable, but, unless your building is somehow unique to your campus AND likely to be the worst-performing (and therefore getting its lousy recycling performance masked by the campus-wide figure) I would think you'll find a reasonable response from GBCI.

Thank you Dan for your input. If you have any other comments that may be supplemental feel free to add.

Thanks for your time Dan

Absolutely - simply enter them as 'commingled' in the template and note what types of material are included in the commingled collection stream. Note that this flexibility for MRc7 differs from MRc6, in which an EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems.-compliant waste audit requires a more complete sorting of materials to identify missed opportunities.

My question is similar to the one above and the question above about depth of data collection. Since all of our recyclables are commingled can I just say 'Commingled' in the template and note all the materials that are recycled (paper, cardboard, glass, metals, plastics...) since our hauler does not have the ability to measure each trip how much glass, cardboard, paper individually. We receive monthly reports stating pounds recycled vs. pounds landfilled and wanted to know if this would suffice.

In Credit MRc6, we stated all sensitive shredded paper is 100% recycled and landscape waste is 100% recycled onsite, but was not included in our calculations. Is it safe for this credit to not include weights of either again as we do not have a means to measure the weight of landscape material or shredded paper especially since our building is a multiple tenants and we do not want to inconvenience our tenants in weighing their sensitive papers.

That would suffice Paul - for MRc7 the distribution of materials within your recycling stream matters much less than the overall weight/volume of the recycled material. And I think you are safe on landscape waste and shredded paper as long as you exclude them from the calculation completely; to include them you'd need some kind of measurement (many of my clients estimate volumes visually then convert to weight using EPA conversion rates), but if you simply exclude them from the equation with a note that 100% is recycled, you should be fine.

Hi Rachael -

For this credit, all you need to do is track the total amount of waste sent to the landfill and the total amount of waste recycled, composted, etc. You don't need to quantify what percentage of paper or other specific materials go to the landfill for this credit (though you do need to do this to achieve MRc6). Your waste hauler should be able to provide you with information on the total amount of waste, recycling, compost, etc. you produce.

Ok, that seems more manageable. Thanks again.

Yep, to comply with the credit requirements, you only need to document the total amount of waste generated during the performance period and then specify the amount of recycling that occurred during the same period. You don't need to provide hauler receipts, but it is a good idea to try to separate out the different types of recycling (i.e. glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, etc.) and note who the hauler was for each type of recycled material. You can easily track the amount of recycled material by using the Waste Management Tracking Sheet for 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. located in the Documentation Toolkit section; if you use this tracking sheet throughout your performance period, it should be a snap to complete the LEED Credit Form and include detailed recycling info.