By Julie Gevrenov, environmental engineer with EPA
Recycling markets for post-consumer asphalt roofing shingles
(tear-offs) are starting to gain ground. The blossoming green building
movement, emphasis on environmental stewardship, increasing oil prices,
aggregate shortages, efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions,
state recycling programs and regulations, local recycling ordinances,
increasing tipping (disposal) fees and difficulty choosing sites for
new landfills are some drivers pushing recycling of construction and
demolition materials into the limelight.
In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's)
Resource Conservation Challenge is drawing attention to reuse and
recycling of construction and demolition materials.
According to the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA),
an estimated 11 million tons of asphalt roofing shingles are generated
annually in the U.S., and some estimates are higher. Compared with
other construction and demolition materials such as metal, concrete and
asphalt pavement, only a small percentage of asphalt shingle tear-offs
are currently recovered, leaving significant opportunity to use
recycled asphalt shingles.
The primary use for recycled asphalt shingles in the U.S. is as a road
building material, particularly for use in hot-mix asphalt. Other uses
of recycled asphalt shingles include cold-mix asphalt, cold patch, road
base, dust control, mulch, temporary roads and fuel.
The benefits derived from using recycled asphalt shingles stem from the
recovery of asphalt cement and mineral aggregate components of
shingles, each of which represent about 20 to 40 percent of a shingle's
weight. With the price of oil at an all-time high and aggregate
shortages being experienced in some areas of the U.S., there are
obvious reasons to investigate opportunities to recycle shingles.
Resources
Check out www.shinglerecycling.org, a comprehensive clearinghouse of information about the subject.
The Web site includes overviews of shingle recycling in each state
(including state regulations, environmental agency contacts and all
known recyclers), economics of recycling, markets for recycled
shingles, pertinent environmental regulations, worker health and safety
issues, a library of literature on shingle recycling and current
research.
Environmental issues
Environmental Issues Associated with Asphalt Shingle Recycling
discusses two main environmental concerns: asbestos, which occasionally
is found in the fiberglass or felt mat of shingles, and polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which occur naturally in asphalt
products.
Best practices
Recycling Tear-Off Asphalt Shingles: Best Practices Guide
provides a starting point for shingle recyclers to plan a new operation
or improve an existing one. It focuses on business planning, recycling
operations, marketing strategies and compliance recommendations and
identifies three major best practices, each with a number of supporting
points:
- Recyclers should implement quality-assurance and -control
systems to carefully control the quality of their incoming supplies of
shingle tear-off materials.
- Recyclers' end product, recycled asphalt shingles, should meet or exceed material specifications of their end markets.
- A recycler's business plan should include a marketing plan based on multiple outlets for recycled asphalt shingles.
Economic IssuesShingles are heavy, making transportation a limiting factor in any
recycling project. The recycling tipping fee must be cost-competitive
for a roofing contractor to choose recycling instead of disposal.
Likewise, a recycled asphalt shingle product must be priced
competitively because end-users are more likely to choose a
nontraditional or recycled product if it will save them money. And
finally, preference for using recycled asphalt shingles varies among
hot-mix asphalt plant operators.
Materials specifications also are critical for market development.
State department of transportation (DOT) specifications often are
relied on by county and local public works engineers and used on
private jobs and DOT projects. However, only a handful of state DOTs
(Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina) currently have specifications
for using recycled asphalt shingles in hot-mix asphalt.
Other states (Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia) have specifications for the
use of manufacturers' shingle scrap in hot-mix asphalt though the
volume of available manufacturers' scrap is insignificant compared with
the volume of shingle tear-offs generated annually.
How to Recycle Shingles in YOUR State
Recycling presents great environmental stewardship opportunities for
the roofing industry. If you are interested in recycling asphalt
shingles, research the resources currently available in your state,
including state specifications.
You can find this information and key contacts for your state agencies at www.shinglerecycling.org
under the State Experience section. Your state regulator will help you
learn what can be recycled in your state and how to do it. If you want
to start a recycling operation, don't learn by trial and error—you can
refer to the best practices guide to glean the cumulative wisdom of the
pioneers of asphalt shingle recycling.
Remember, you may be able to reduce your disposal costs by keeping
asphalt shingles and other construction and demolition materials out of
landfills. And substituting reused or recycled materials in place of
virgin materials can result in substantial energy savings and
greenhouse gas emissions reductions—and you can make that happen.
Shingle Recycling Business Opportunity
So where's the business opportunity in shingle recycling? On the front
end, you obviously can save money by recycling if a recycling tipping
fee compares favorably with costs of local landfill tipping fees.
SAVE: Recycling Tipping Fees
But what about recyclers and end-users, particularly hot-mix asphalt
producers? In general, most private companies don't want to discuss
their operations, and because local conditions such as tipping fees
vary widely, no single example can be representative of all operations.
But a hypothetical, conservative scenario can help reveal some
information.
Assuming the asphalt shingles torn off a roof system are 20 percent
asphalt, the price of liquid asphalt cement is $300 per ton and about
75 percent of the asphalt in the shingles is "available" to replace
virgin asphalt cement in hot-mix asphalt, then the value of the asphalt
in the recycled asphalt shingles is about $45 per ton.
If we assume a
recycler and hot-mix asphalt producer split the value of the recycled
asphalt shingles, $22.50 per ton is paid to the recycler less about $15
per ton for processing and transportation costs, leaving the recycler
with about a $7.50 per ton profit on the processing side of the
operation alone.
Profitable recycling ventures need revenue from their tipping fees
as well as from the sale of recycled materials. If a recycler sets his
tipping fee for asphalt shingle tear-offs at 50 to 75 percent of the
landfill tipping fee, there is a financial incentive for people to
recycle.
EARN: Sale of Recycled Materials
Presorting Shingles
Recycling Tear-Off Asphalt Shingles: Best Practices Guide (which is available for FREE at www.shinglerecycling.org)
explains that presorting can be done quite reasonably by roofing
contractors—the goal isn't to remove every last nail from the shingles
but to keep wood, plastic and other debris in separate piles.
With the
price of petroleum-based products at an all-time high, this
conservative, back-of-the-envelope estimate shows that shingle
recycling can be quite profitable.
ROI for Roofing, Recycling and Paving
And the economic and environmental
benefits are shared across the roofing, recycling and paving
industries.
Julie Gevrenov is an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago.
READ MORE: Professional Roofing