Environmental Leader

The Vinyl Roofing Division of the Chemical Fabrics & Film Association announced it has initiated a feasibility study to evaluate strategies for making post-consumer recycling in North America viable on a broad scale.

The white paper, “Avoiding the Landfill:  The Recycling of Vinyl Roof Membranes,” reports that the division’s member manufacturers intend to combine existing post-consumer recycling technologies with logistics to limit vinyl’s contribution to landfill waste. The EPA estimates that construction and demolition waste totals an estimated 136 million tons annually.

In one of its pilot projects, the Division found that the savings in disposal fees and the value of the salvaged materials generally exceeded the cost of the additional labor. The re-roofing of Boston’s Marriott Long Wharf hotel saw 95 percent of existing materials of the assembly recycled. The contractor estimated a saving of 25 percent versus the traditional disposal costs, even with the additional handling required.

GM is planning to make half of its manufacturing plants to be landfill-free by 2010, through recycling over 96 percent of waste materials at its plants.

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