The power of cooperation.

Previously in this department, it was pointed out how the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) had announced its ban on the use of C&D fines as alternative daily cover (ADC) in MSW landfills. Issue was taken with the DES' derision to give the state's C&D recyclers only 10 days notice that the main outlet for the material would no longer be available. Predictably, as there were virtually no other outlets, stockpiles started rising at the recyclers' sites.

At the urging of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), the DES agreed to meet with all stakeholders on the issue, which included the recyclers, the regulators and all the landfills that were using the material. From those meetings a series of best management practices (BMPs) are being developed to allow fines to be used as ADC. These are a precursor to the BMPs the CMRA will develop for use nationally.

Yes, New Hampshire DES had every legal power to do what it did. But the CMRA suggests that it, and every other regulatory agency, should work with the affected groups before making major decisions that will severely and harmfully impact business, especially one as environmentally friendly and necessary to reach recycling goals as C&D recycling.

Neighboring Massachusetts provides a better example of how to execute the legislative process. That state will probably soon implement a disposal ban on C&D materials. The planning for this ban has taken several years, and, almost from the beginning, representatives from all stakeholder groups have participated in the drafting of the version of the ban that went out for public comment. It succeeded because the state learned from industry what would and wouldn't work.

For example, while Massachusetts legislators would have liked to add asphalt shingles and gypsum to the ban, they limited it to concrete, asphalt, brick, wood, OCC and metals because they were shown there were no markets for the other materials. Now the state is actively trying to find markets for shingles and gypsum while it goes ahead to ban the materials the recycled products market should be able to support.

Regulation of the C&D recycling industry is necessary and recyclers should expect it to continue. Indeed, it should be a friend to legitimate recyclers because state and local enforcement personnel can halt the fly-by-night, less-than-legal recyclers who often give the industry a bad name. Also, regulation can help the industry, as illustrated in Massachusetts.

CMRA Annual Meeting

While I am on the subject of working with legislators, Stephanie Vance will be among the speakers at the CMRA's Annual Meeting March 16, 2005, in Las Vegas. Vance is a professional legislative liaison based in Washington, D.C., and will provide participants with ideas and tactics on how to deal with legislators and bureaucracies.

For more information on the Annual Meeting, which will be held in conjunction with ConExpo-Con/Agg 2005, please turn to page 20 or contact the CMRA at [phone] or at [e-mail].