The Price of Recyclables

  • Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste, says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. (Photo by Erin Kelly)

If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:

Transcript

If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:

Last winter, Carolyn Almquist had a problem. Carolyn’s in charge of exports for APL transportation in Oakland, California. It’s her job to move shipping containers full of American exports, like wastepaper, to factories over in Asia. The problem was, the factories in Asia didn’t want them.

“There was no buyer. It would arrive at our terminal, say, in Jakarta, and no one would pick it up.”

Asian paper mills were canceling deals with the ships halfway across the Pacific. And Carolyn – who’s in charge of APL’s exports – was the first to hear about it.

“I’m getting an email saying, ‘what are you people doing? Don’t send stuff without a buyer.’”

Waste paper is the country’s number one export, by volume, so when prices fall, it’s not just Carolyn who’s in trouble.

“Hey, Alex, good morning! Steve Moore calling.”

Steve runs a company called Pacific Rim Recycling, 40 miles north of San Francisco.

“Got any updates for me on the marketplace?”

Every day, he calls around to see how much people are paying for things like newspaper, water bottles, old envelopes.

“What about corrugated?”

Most of our recycled cardboard, and a lot of our plastic ends up at Asian factories where it’s turned into iPhone boxes, polyester shirts, that are then shipped right back to the US market.

Until, that is, we stop shopping.

“When people stop buying those goods and products – the VCRS and the TVs from China – there’s no need for the boxes to go around them.”

That’s Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. He says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. In two months, plastic water bottles dropped from $500 a ton, to less than $100.

“What recycling experienced in the last six months is really the same thing the entire global economy has been experiencing.”

So, when the economy falters, recyclers suffer. Some shut down entirely. Others were forced to simply dump unsellable paper into local landfills.

Steve Moore hunkered down to wait it out.

“We couldn’t sell anything for six weeks. All this material was backing up, I had to rent space next door. I had to sell it at $10 a ton, just to get rid of it.”

By February, prices had started to recover, as demand for consumer goods began picking up a bit – but they’re no where near the highs of a year ago.

“And a ton of paper today is worth $100 a ton. Last year, it was worth $200 a ton. It’s a very volatile market, so the economics of that are pretty severe.”

One reason the market’s so volatile is that with recyclables, the supply never stops. No matter how much or how little those Asian factories want our cardboard and our plastic water bottles, we are going to keep putting them out on the sidewalk.

Oil manufacturers can turn down the spigot when demand drops, to control supply so it keeps pace with demand. But bales of paper and plastic just take up too much space. And here at Pacific Rim recycling, the trucks keep rolling in.

(sound of bottles and cans at Pacific Rim)

“The volume of this material is huge!”

But at least it’s moving. Prices for our recyclables might be lower than their peak a year ago, but Steve Moore can relax again.

And, over at the Port of Oakland, Carolyn’s no longer getting angry emails.

“Things are picking up again. Financing has freed up. The banks are a little less nervous, If we had a ship here today, she’s be sailing Oakland full. Life is a little bit easier.”

And Carolyn Almquist knows as well as anyone in this industry to enjoy it while it lasts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Standen.

Related Links

Watering Down Airport Waste

  • The airport in Portland has installed water collection drains for passengers to dump liquids before getting on their flights. (Photo courtesy of the Port of Portland)

Three years ago, the Department
of Homeland Security passed new
regulations. If you’re a regular
flyer, you know them well: no more
bringing your drinks on the airplane.
It turns out that this ruling isn’t
just inconvenient for us – it’s also
inconvenient for the environment.
Deena Prichep reports
on the beverage restrictions, and
what one airport is doing about it:

Transcript

Three years ago, the Department
of Homeland Security passed new
regulations. If you’re a regular
flyer, you know them well: no more
bringing your drinks on the airplane.
It turns out that this ruling isn’t
just inconvenient for us – it’s also
inconvenient for the environment.
Deena Prichep reports
on the beverage restrictions, and
what one airport is doing about it:

(sound of an airport)

Modern air travel can be a hassle. We take off our shoes, take off our belts, and get rid of our drinks. Announcements like this one are so common that you barely notice them:

“Morning, folks. Make sure you drink up those beverages prior to going through. That includes bottled water, sodas, juice, coffee.”

Okay, you might notice him. That’s Roger Nelson. He’s a TSA guy at the Portland International Airport.

For most of us, following Nelson’s instructions isn’t really a big deal. But while the impact on the passenger is small, the impact on the environment can be bigger than you’d think.

After the ban on carry-on beverages was put in place, many airports saw a big rise in their checkpoint waste. At Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport, the weight of their trash went up 25%. In the Houston Airport system, checkpoint waste collection went up 70%. Even at an airport the size of Portland’s, they estimate up to a ton of liquid per day was ending up in the waste stream.

Stan Jones is the environmental compliance manager at the Port of Portland. He watches airport trash and recycling to see how good a job they’re doing:

“If we look in the recycling at the checkpoints, people have recycled bottles, but they’re full of beverages. And one thing we don’t want in our recycling is liquids, because the recycling centers don’t want a bunch of wet papers, which wrecks the quality of the recycling. At the same time, we’re seeing if we look in the garbage at the checkpoints, same thing, we got bottles half-full of water, bottles full of water.”

Jones oversees many programs that cut waste at the airport. So he looked into tackling this problem as well. And he found that this wasn’t just an environmental problem – it was costing the airport money. Up to $100 a day in extra dump fees. The tossed-out drinks were also costing money on the staffing side. Janitors struggled to get a handle on overflowing watery trashcans.

Jenny Taylor coordinates the facilities staff.

“One of the things we did was increase the frequency in which the cans were dumped, from every two hours to half an hour. So that was almost a full-time position. That ended up being roughly $100 buck a day, or between $30 and $40,000 a year.”

So with up to $100 a day for extra dumping, and $100 a day for extra staffing, the waste was costing the Airport about $75,000 a year.

So the Port launched a program last fall to tackle the problem. They set up stainless steel collection bins right outside the security checkpoints. Twice a day they’re wheeled off, measured, and drained into modified mop sinks, by janitors like Jason Weixel.

(sound of water draining)

“And, almost 25, I’d say 24 gallons today.”

The liquids flow into the sewer system, instead of being hauled to a landfill, and the empty bottles can then be recycled.

But changing people’s recycling habits can be difficult, especially when they’re running for a flight. Many travelers still toss full bottles into the trash without even noticing the new drains.

But at the Portland International Airport, people like Roger Nelson are there to remind them.

“We do have pouring stations. Yes, the big PS, either left or right, just pour it into there. Once you do pour it, empty out, take the empty bottle with you, fill it up on the other side. Our water is cold, filtered and free. Did I get you on the free part, right?”

So far this little solution is working. The dump stations are diverting several thousand pounds of liquid from the trash every month. And the Port of Portland is working with other airports looking to set up similar systems.

For The Environment Report, I’m Deena Prichep.

Related Links

Turbulent Fuel Prices Hit Airlines Hard

  • Airlines say that there needs to be more regulation on oil speculators. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Recent swings in the price of
crude oil are leading to more
trouble for the US airline
industry. Rebecca Williams
reports:

Transcript

Recent swings in the price of
crude oil are leading to more
trouble for the US airline
industry. Rebecca Williams
reports:

Even though oil futures are trading for half of what they were last summer, the airlines are not happy.

David Castelveter is with the Air Transport Association. He says wild price swings for oil make it tough for the industry to plan ahead.

“They hedge their fuel purchases when the price is high at a lower rate and if the price of fuel goes low then they’re hedged in at higher rates and it costs them money.”

Airlines would like to raise ticket prices, but, with the recession, they’re worried no one will buy them.

So instead, they’re trying to cut back on how much fuel they use. Airlines are retrofitting planes with winglets that cut fuel consumption.

But that takes money and time. So in the meantime, they’re also cutting jobs and routes.

The industry’s putting pressure on Congress to force more transparency in the oil futures trading market.

They’re hoping more regulation on oil speculators would mean fewer price swings.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Legislation to Make More Efficient Homes

  • The bill would require new homes to immediately be 30% more energy efficient. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:

Transcript

This session of Congress has pledged to take on
the issue of climate change. A bill in the Senate
is already awaiting action. But the House has
already passed the sweeping Clean Energy And
Security Act. One piece of that bill could change
the way homes are built in this country. In short,
they’d use a lot less energy. Tamara Keith has more:

The bill would require a re-write of building codes. New homes would immediately have to be 30% more energy efficient. And the requirements would keep getting tougher from there.

The idea is controversial. But for Alex Dean, building efficiently is just the way he does business.

“It’s building to a higher standard. And we really enjoy building fine projects for people who want it done right.”

Dean is the CEO of the Alexander Group, a home design, build and renovation firm in Maryland. He’s showing me around a green remodel.

(sound of key in door)

“This is the entry from the garage into the new addition.”

Dean and his team are putting an addition on a home in an upscale Washington, DC suburb.

He’s designed every detail with an eye to energy efficiency, starting with the insulation. He used a spray foam. It costs about twice as much as the insulation required by current building codes.

“You know, it’s worth it, and in the overall scheme of building the house, it’s not that much money.”

On this hot humid day, you can feel the difference the fancy insulation makes.

Keith: “It’s cooler than it is outside.

Dean: “Yeah, yeah.”

Keith: “And there’s no AC running in here right now.”

Dean: “No, not at all. And this building is directly in the sun. But that’s how effective this is. This is keeping some of the coolness from last night when it was in the 60s.”

That means he can install smaller heating and air conditioning units that use less energy.

The windows are double paned. The lights, all compact fluorescents or super efficient LEDs.

It’s projects like this one that make Bill Fay confident home builders will be able to handle greener building codes. Fay is the executive director of the Building Energy Efficient Codes Network.

“We know it’s achievable. And we know it’s achievable using affordable technologies. It’s just now a matter to have the resolve to do it.”

Past efforts at greening the building codes met with stiff opposition from home builders and failed to make it through congress.

Koteri Callahan is president of the Alliance to Save Energy and she says the stakes are high. Buildings are huge energy wasters.

“Every house and every office building that goes in the ground today is going to be around for decades and decades and in some cases centuries.”

But these days, the ground isn’t being broken on very many homes. The industry is in a serious slump.

Bill Kilmer is the head of advocacy for the National Association of Home Builders and he doesn’t want members of congress to forget about the industry’s struggles.

“Consumers certainly in the last year are stepping back and said, ‘what can we afford.’ And so we’re trying to take a mainstream, if you will, that says, ‘people want this.’ How can we get to that point, and how can we get there reasonably, and take afford-ability into account.”

Kilmer says the building industry is taking environmental issues seriously, and recently created a voluntary green building certification program.

But, he says the House bill moves too far too fast. He says builders would like until 2012 to meet the 30% efficiency goal.

“You really don’t have the equipment or the materials that are ready and ramped up to make the adjustments in the marketplace to bring those things to bear, without a tremendous cost burden that’ll be added on to the production of the housing and that obviously is going to be passed on to someone, and that’ll be the consumer.”

This question of affordability is a big one. And it seems like everyone has a statistic to make their point.


For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Tax Incentives Put Solar Within Reach

  • Eric Lindstrom, Vice President of Cannon Design, stands next to the building's 140 new solar panels (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

Transcript

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

You might say that sunlight is a trade mark for Cannon Design. The Western New York based firm designs some of the most solar friendly buildings in the world. But only now is Cannon using the sun for its own building.

Eric Lindstrom is Vice President of the company. He says it’s what their environmentally savvy clients expect.

“You know there’s a huge P.R. factor here that we can bring our clients in and say, you know, this is what we’re recommending to you, but we’ve done it ourselves and it works. That we didn’t just read it in a magazine somewhere and say this is what you should be doing.”

Lindstrom takes us up on the roof of the company’s building to have a look at the new system.

Up here we find solar panels. 140 of them. They’re stretched out from edge to edge, soaking up the rays.

Lindstrom says they generate about 5% of the energy the building needs. But he says even at that small percentage the company will recoup the roughly $17,000 investment in about three years.

The system’s total price tag is actually about $170,000. But Cannon Design got corporate tax credits and incentives that covered roughly 90%. After the pay-back period, Linstrom says the company will actually pocket money.

Back in the building they can watch the savings add up on the inverter meters inside. That got Lindstrom thinking. He got a bid on a system for his home. He’s decided against it for now because the payback would take about eight years. You see, businesses get more tax breaks than homeowners.

But some people say the payback time can be less. And sometimes it just doesn’t’ matter to them.

Joan Bozer was at the American Solar Energy Society Conference held in Buffalo, New York. Bozer was showing off pictures of her home’s $30,000 solar system. It cost her half that after incentives. The payback will take a while—about eight years. But Bozer says that’s okay.

“Because it doesn’t make any difference to me if it’s five years or ten years what the payback period is. I want the solar panels, like people in their house they put on the roof they want, or they put on what they want and this is what we want – solar panels on the roof. That’s how we want to do it.”

But as green-minded as she is, Bozer admits that federal and state incentives gave her the final push.

While everybody can take advantage of recent federal tax credits, state incentives vary. Some are generous, and some offer homeowners nothing. Some local governments are offering low-interest loans on top of the federal and state incentives.

Neal Lurie is with the Solar Society. Lurie says incentives are creating demand and that’s driving down the cost of solar systems.
He says systems cost about 30% less than last year.

Lurie says with lower prices and tax incentives, some homeowners can have solar without much – or no – money out of pocket.

But how soon will solar catch on with the masses? Lurie predicts in less than six years.

“We’ll see solar technology a low-cost provider of electricity, even lower priced than fossil fuels without incentives. I think that when that happens we’re going to see it go from being something that people are looking at and starting to do to something that is truly common-place, much more than people may actually expect today.”

Others think solar will really take off in just three years. Solar installers are already gearing up. Some say they’ll double their workforce by the end of this year.

For The Environment Report – I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Speculators Cause Spike in Oil Prices

The price of a barrel of oil has jumped
up from $45 to nearly $70 in just
three months. And gas prices have been
creeping up too. Rebecca Williams reports
these prices are out of sync with the usual
rules of supply and demand:

Transcript

The price of a barrel of oil has jumped
up from $45 to nearly $70 in just
three months. And gas prices have been
creeping up too. Rebecca Williams reports
these prices are out of sync with the usual
rules of supply and demand:

Right now there’s a huge glut of supply of oil – and at the same time, weak global demand for it.

Ruchir Kadakia is a global oil market expert. He’s with Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

He says speculators are driving oil prices up.

“People believe that with positive economic growth in the future there will be greater demand for oil. So they start to buy up oil in anticipation of that demand recovery.”

So these speculators are making money while most of the economy is in a slump.

But Kadakia thinks the realities of supply and demand will eventually catch up and drag oil prices back down.

“The pain we’re feeling at the pump today is probably going to be the worst we feel all this summer.”

He thinks gas prices might actually get back below two dollars a gallon.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Interview: Carbon Cap and Trade

  • If proposed energy legislation passes in Congress, renewable energy sources like wind an solar will become more competitive with fossil fuels. (Photo by Erin Toner)

Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program that would make fossil fuels more expensive and give renewable energy an advantage. The U.S. is in the middle of a huge transition in where we get energy and how we use it. Some businesses leaders predict these changes will be disastrous for the economy killing jobs and making energy expensive. Lester Graham discussed some of those concerns with Tom Lyon, the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise.

Transcript

Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program that would make fossil fuels more expensive and give renewable energy an advantage. The U.S. is in the middle of a huge transition in where we get energy and how we use it. Some businesses leaders predict these changes will be disastrous for the economy killing jobs and making energy expensive. Lester Graham discussed some of those concerns with Tom Lyon, the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise:

“I think it’s important to think about who you’re hearing these things from. Because there are certain industries who are really opposed and scared and they’re making a lot of noise. And it’s essentially the fossil fuel people; it’s the coal industry and then after that, the oil industry. And they have a very special-interest stake in this. So you gotta take what they say with a big grain of salt. Probably electricity prices will increase: not by a lot, not by fifty percent. They’ll go up slightly—depends what kind of region of the country you are in. If you’re in an area dominated by coal-fired power, your costs will go up some because coal is dirty, coal’s been getting a free ride for a long time. The price of coal should go up. If you’re in an area that’s already shifted towards renewables, you’re costs won’t go up much.”

And you mean wind turbines and…

“Wind turbines, hydroelectric power, biomass, solar.”

And what about jobs? Are we going to see this being a job killer?

“It’s going to be a transition device; it’s going to allow us to move towards a 21st century economy. So it’s going to allow us to put people on the ground building wind turbines, installing and maintaining wind turbines, putting in solar cells, and I think there are going to be a lot of jobs in the energy efficiency sector. It’s going to transition our automobile sector towards plug-in electric vehicles and things that might sell in a future economy that’s going to be climate constrained and that’s going to face higher energy prices.”

So it sounds like coal miners should be thinking about job training or retraining.

“Coal miners should definitely be thinking about retraining! You know, that’s just, it’s just an inevitable thing—where the economy is going, retraining is an important thing but this puts us on the right path toward the future.”

Now the President, and some environmentalists, and some leading businesses say, “We’ll be more energy independent, we’ll have clean wind and solar power, we’ll be much more energy efficient because of retrofitting these buildings, we’ll lead the world in renewable, clean energy. How’s that benefit me, at home?

“I think the first thing is, it benefits you because you’re helping to move the planet in the right direction. You’re making the planet a better place for your kids, for your grandkids, and you’re averting the risk that we go over the climate cliff. Because that’s very much a real risk.”

So global warming really is going to be as disastrous as we hear some of the alarmists say.

“It could be. We don’t know for certain. There’s a whole lot of uncertainty around this. However, I think most people who’ve thought about this agree we need to move in the direction of solving the climate problem because the news is always bad. Every new report that comes out of modern science shows the planet’s warming faster than we thought, sea level is rising faster than we thought; the whole thing is moving much more quickly than people thought even five years ago. So there’s no news that’s pointing in the other direction. The urgency just keeps increasing.”

There’s likely to be a huge fight in Washington and Congress is going to be terribly divided on carbon cap-and-trade: what do you think the likely outcome is?

“I think we’re gonna pass something. The Obama folks are very committed; they’ve staffed up with very smart people who understand the issue, who’ve been working on it for years. There’s a lot of political commitment within the congress already and Obama has taken this on as a signature issue.”

Tom Lyon is the Director of the Erb Institute of Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. He spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

Related Links

Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future (Part 4)

  • Four Corners Power Plant is one of the dirtiest in the country, based on its emissions of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and mercury. Under a cap-and-trade system, plants like this would have to cut pollution or buy carbon permits. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)

President Obama wants the U.S. to reduce the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program. Lester Graham reports on what that will mean to coal-burning industries and your power bill:

Transcript

President Obama wants the U.S. to reduce the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program. Lester Graham reports on what that will mean to coal-burning industries and your power bill:

For all the talk about carbon cap-and-trade, few people really understand what it is. And no one really knows what it will end up costing you on your electric bill – at least not yet.

The President wants carbon dioxide polluters such as coal-burning power plants to cut how much carbon dioxide they spew from the smokestacks.

So, the government is now designing a plan to cap the total amount of carbon dioxide pollution nation-wide. Once that amount is set, each polluter is allotted a limited amount of allowances to release carbon dioxide. Go over that allowance and the polluter has to pay per ton of CO2 released. Don’t use all of the allowances, and a company is free to trade them -–for a price—to others who need the allowances.

Over time that nation-wide cap will keep get lower, making carbon pollution more and more expensive.

How much of that cost ends up on your electricity bill is the big question.

There are some wildly different predictions. Some lobby groups indicate cap-and-trade could nearly double electric rates. But politics really plays into many of those predictions.

We went to analysts at Point Carbon. It’s a respected world-wide carbon market consultant. Veronique Bugnion says Point Carbon made some estimates based on President Obama’s carbon cap-and-trade plan in his proposed budget.

“Now, in terms of the U.S. average, what we calculated is that it would represent a roughly seven% increase over current electricity rates.”

That’s the average.

But, if your power company uses mostly coal instead of hydro-power or nuclear or wind or solar, Bugnion says it could cost more.

“At the extreme, in the regions that are essentially entirely coal dependent, the impact would be closer to anywhere between ten and 15-percent.”

President Obama says says a carbon cap-and-trade scheme can be designed so that it smooths out the effect on consumers who live in a coal-dependent area.

“The way it’s structured has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So, there are a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through.”

And Congress is just beginning to sort through them. But coal and power companies as well as big oil and industries that use a lot of energy are lobbying hard to kill carbon cap-and-trade or make sure doesn’t cost them, or their shareholders, more than they want.

That leaves most of us wondering what reducing the greenhouse gases will end up costing us after Congress gets finished.

Sandy Kline runs a small house-cleaning business called “More Grime than Time” out of her home in suburban Detroit. Because of the economy she’s lost some business lately. Times are a little tighter.

She says she’s concerned about climate change, but she’s worried what the President’s carbon cap-and-trade plan might do to her power bill and her family budget.

“What he’s proposing sounds like a good idea –big picture– as far as the greenhouse emissions and that, but, you know, on an individual basis it can really hurt people like me.”

She wonders if consumer pressure isn’t enough to get those power companies using coal-burning plants to change. But, that could take decades. Climate scientists say we don’t have that kind of time. We have to do something to reduce greenhouse gases now.

So, experts say you should get ready. Since we don’t know exactly what cap-and-trade will do to electricity rates, it might be a good idea to reduce your power usage. Take advantage of the current tax incentives to get more energy efficient appliances and tighten up your home.

They say, even if rates do go up because of carbon cap-and-trade, if you’re using less power, it could be you won’t see a much of a difference when you get your electric bill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Recession Proof Construction

  • One company created a website that acts as kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)

In the middle of a recession that’s

crippling the construction field,

there’s at least one sector of

industry that’s doing pretty well.

That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces

of old buildings and using them in

new ones. Advocates say used materials

could save developers a heap of money.

Samara Freemark has the

story of one re-use company that’s both

green and in the black:

Transcript

In the middle of a recession that’s

crippling the construction field,

there’s at least one sector of

industry that’s doing pretty well.

That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces

of old buildings and using them in

new ones. Advocates say used materials

could save developers a heap of money.

Samara Freemark has the

story of one re-use company that’s both

green and in the black:

You’ve probably heard what’s going on in the construction industry
these days.

(news montage of housing crisis)

But in middle of all that bad news, there might be one bright spot.

“We’ve actually been expanding quite a bit. I guess it’s one of the
only times I’ve heard
of where that’s the case.”

That’s architect Brad Hardin.

He got interested in reusing building materials pretty early in his career.
He likes the way
the old stuff looked. And he likes the idea of saving resources. And
he’s also kind of
horrified by the tens of millions of tons of construction waste that get
tossed into landfills
every year.

But actually getting his hands on used materials, so that he could reuse
them- that turned
out to be a real pain in the butt.

“You know you’ll be literally going out to someone’s yard and getting
rained on, or
sorting through someone’s basement– it was kind of a hit and miss
process.”

A big part of the problem was simple logistics. Imagine you’re knocking
down an old
house to build a new one. You’d like to sell off whatever pieces of the
old building you
can. But how do you find someone to buy all that stuff? Where do you store
it while you
look for a buyer? And how do you ship the materials?

Harry Giles is a professor of green architecture at the University of
Michigan.

He says most developers don’t want to bother with all that hassle. In the
end, they usually
just end up bulldozing everything. Giles says that’s because there’s no
real secondhand
market for used construction materials- not like there is in a lot of other
industries.

“If you take the car industry, a lot of it is geared around the reuse of
materials. Not just
taking the car and crushing it, but taking it apart and finding useful
components on it.”

You know, like a salvage yard.

And that was the problem Brad Hardin wanted to solve – how to create a
secondhand
market for spare building parts. He figured that if he could do that,
reusing building
materials could actually end up profitable.

So last year he started a company called Planet ReUse. The company’s
website acts as
kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials. Buyers and
sellers can find each
other on the ‘net.

And Planet ReUse tests all material to make sure it’s up to code. That
way the buyer
doesn’t end up with, say, eight tons of rotten planking. And Planet ReUse
arranges all the
shipping- trying to hook up sellers to nearby buyers. That saves money and
fuel.

By removing those basic barriers, Hardin says his buyers save about 20%
compared to
buying new. And Planet ReUse still makes a profit.

And it’s also a start to reducing those millions of tons of landfill
waste.

So, what kind of stuff does he sell on the site?

“How much time do you have? Steel, flooring…”

It turns out there’s money in just about everything you can salvage from
a building.

Harry Giles says that cash is the key to cutting down waste.

“If people see that it’s a lucrative business to actually salvage
materials, that will drive it
much faster than concern for the environment.”

And it’s not just buildings. Remember President Obama’s inauguration
stage? Well, that
got torn down, and Planet ReUse is trying to get the pieces to New Orleans.
They’ll be
used to rebuild houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

It’s just one more way for Planet ReUse to prove that you can do good, be
green, and
make a little money too.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Cranberries Burst Into New Markets

  • Cranberry harvest in New Jersey (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)

One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:


In the late 1990s, the market for cranberries started drying up. Americans didn’t
seem to crave the pucker of our native berry. Some years growers were getting as
little as 8 dollars a barrel and they didn’t know if they could stay in business much
longer.

Today, they’re getting as much as 150 dollars per barrel.

Dawn Gates-Allen is fourth generation cranberry grower on Cape Cod.

“It’s been ten years of suppressed grower return for the price per barrel.”

Prices are rebounding because cranberries have gained popularity as a healthful
fruit overseas. Europe and Japan have started importing a third of America’s
cranberry crop.

But even with that new demand, you shouldn’t see a big jump in prices at the
supermarket this year: the weather has been great for cranberries and there’s a
bumper crop.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links