Background

In recent years, many manufacturing plants and military bases have closed or relocated. Often, new development on these “brownfield” sites is made difficult by real or perceived environmental contamination. Through the Economic Redevelopment Initiative, EPA helps states, tribes, communities, and other organizations to:

•  Assess existing sites

•  Prevent further contamination

•  Safely clean up sites

•  Design plans to re-use them.

The Brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America 's 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. This program provides funding incentives, feasibility tools, and individual grants up to $1,000,000 to help states, tribes, communities and other organizations prevent, assess, safely clean up, and reuse Brownfields. EPA's Brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $4.6 billion in private investment, helped create more than 20,000 jobs and resulted in the assessment of more than 4,000 properties.

Demolition and Recycling

Demolition and recycling can offset cleanup costs and make a project financially viable (asphalt can be recycled by using it, along with earth components, in the manufacturing of new asphalt pavement. It can be used as clean fill, on or off site, if allowed by local and state regulations).

In addition, the ability to bring in a concrete crusher on-site and place the resulting aggregate under the future building's parking field saved several hundred thousand dollars in off-site disposal costs and essentially eliminated long-term environmental liability associated with trucking the waste to a specific landfill. This approach contributed to the client being able to meet its aggressive development schedule and “stay ahead of the pack.”

In short, recycling methods are preferred because they conserve resources and minimize the long-term liability of landfilling. In some cases, the revenue from selling demolition debris can offset decontamination and demolition costs substantially. Specifically, asphalt can be recycled by using it in manufacturing new asphalt and can be used as clean fill if allowed by local and state regulations.

Eagle Crusher supports the Brownfields initiative. To find out more on this subject, log onto www.epa.gov/brownfields.

Sources: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/ and Wasteage.com