Demo contractor questions Austin’s recycling target

A planning commission code amendment that would require construction and demolition contractors to recycle 95 percent of the scrap they generate has been delayed following the testimony of a concerned contractor.

According to an article on the Austin Monitor website, Ross Rathgeber of Southwest Destructors told Austin’s Code and Ordinances Committee, “If you really want to kill redevelopment in Austin, you’ll implement this ordinance,” adding that a 95 percent mandate could increase the cost of demolishing a building by a factor of four or five.

The article also quotes Woody Raine of the Austin Resource Recovery agency as saying that C&D materials comprise at least 20 percent of what is going to landfills in Austin.

The 95 percent recycling mandate is not immediate and instead will be phased in, according to the article, from a 50 percent mandate in 2016 to 75 percent in 2020 and 95 percent in 2030.

Raine said the recycling goal percentages have been implemented in other states, including Florida, California, North Carolina and Illinois, and that the numbers are not “pulled out of the air,” according to the Austin Monitor.

Rathgeber did speak in favor of a green builder program in Austin, which he told the committee incentivizes landfill diversion and rewards recycling.

On its website, Southwest Destructors says it is “at the forefront of recycling” and that at its “demolition work sites, we separate materials to the maximum extent feasible.” The company also describes a 77 percent recycling rate it achieved during the “demolition of a large office/warehouse” that yielded 11,000 tons of recyclable metal and concrete.