ion that need to be remediated before demolition and reuse. The clean-up of these sites is a major segment of the demolition market.
What is a Superfund Site?
Highly contaminated sites such as Love Canal in New York, Times Beach in Missouri, the Edison Laboratory site in New Jersey are regulated under the CERCLA or Superfund law. Remediation of these sites which often contain high levels of pollution is a major part of the demolition market. The cost of these clean-ups is born by the chemical industry through a “Superfund.” Clean-up of these sites is often a multi-year endeavor and involves a sophisticated team of demolition professionals including project managers, industrial hygienists, environmental scientists & engineers and highly trained remediation specialists.
What is Environmental Stewardship?
Demolition contractors take great pride in their commitment to being good stewards of the environment. As most demolition contractors work in the towns and cities where they live, they work hard to improve the quality of life in these areas. Demolition of outdated or damage structures, environmental remediation of contaminated sites, asbestos abatement, and soil & facilities decontamination enhance economic development opportunities in these communities and help beautify a city or town.
What is the U.S. Green Building Council?
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is an organization made up of thousands of members committed to moving the building industry forward by promoting greater building efficiency. The goal of the organization is to enhance the quality of life by providing better, healthier places for people to live and work. The USGBC promotes energy efficiency, recycling of construction materials, and sustainability in the building process.
Friable and Non-friable Asbestos
One major component of the U.S. EPA’s Asbestos standard deals with the issue of whether a material contains friable or non-friable asbestos. The National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Asbestos (NESHAP) defines friability as then ability to crush or pulverize, hand pressure, to determine whether potential asbestos-containing material (ACM) can become airborne and therefore respirable when it is handled or disturbed. If a material is determined to be non-friable it may be able to be disposed of as non-asbestos containing, dependent upon individual state or municipal asbestos regulations.
What’s the difference between Demolition and Deconstruction?
As the recycling rates from both conventional demolition and what is called deconstruction are generally about the same, often close to 90% of the material on a project site, the major difference between the two processes tends to be that deconstruction is usually much more labor-intensive than conventional demolition where a considerable amount equipment and technology is used. Deconstruction involves the hand dismantlement of potential recyclables and therefore in addition to be more labor intensive can be more time consuming than convention structural demolition that utilizes heavy equipment, specialized attachments and recycling equipment. The goal of both demolition and deconstruction is the same, to maximize the amount of marketable recycled material generated on a project site.