Item 002 - C&D Recycling and Processing Facility Municipal Case Studies — original pdf

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Municipal C&D Policies: Case Study ZWAC C&D Committee Austin Resource Recovery | 3/4/2026 Who was included? • Chatham County, NC • Oregon Metro/Portland, OR • • San Francisco, CA Seattle, WA 2 Overview ▪ Austin Resource Recovery staff looked at C&D policies and regulations across 5 city and counties to compare how processing facilities were regulated and how diversion and recovery rates were verified. ▪ All cities/counties studied require C&D processing facilities to be registered or qualified and meet certain requirements. ▪ All cities/counties studied require C&D debris generated within their boundary must be sent to a registered or qualified facility 3 Table Comparison City/County Number of processing facilities Facility min. diversion rate? Required 3rd party verification? City/County Staff Review Pre-construction requirements? Austin, TX Chatham County, NC 4 6 Oregon Metro/Portland, OR* San Francisco, CA 11 14 Seattle, WA 7 No Yes (30%) No No Yes (25%) No Yes Yes No (65% recovery responsibility of contractor) No (cannot have >10% residuals of banned materials) N/A No On-site audit 1x/year, digital report review Yes, C&D Debris Management section on permit application On-site audit 2x/year, scale data review 1x/month No Yes, Pre-project plan No On-site audit 1x/year, digital report review Consultant report 1x/year, digital report review 1x/month 4 Chatham County, NC ▪ Minimum diversion rate (30%) requirement for facilities ▪ Licensed C&D facilities that do not meet the annual 30% minimum requirement may be provided an exemption ▪ The facility must demonstrate practical difficulties or unnecessary hardships to meeting the requirement ▪ Contractors must haul mixed material to a licensed facility ▪ License lasts for 1 year; inspection happens before license expires C&D Debris Management section on permit application: 5 Oregon Metro & Portland, OR ▪ Both entities operate together to regulate facilities (Oregon Metro) and job sites/haulers (City of Portland) ▪ Send debris to a Metro-certified facility ▪ Recover at least 75% of materials from larger projects ▪ Minimum 25% diversion requirement for facilities ▪ 15% processing residuals threshold for wood, metal, and cardboard suspended ▪ All facilities consistently meeting requirements, monitoring no longer necessary ▪ Scale data from facilities automatically uploaded to a database that receives monthly review by Oregon Metro 6 Example Audit Sheet 7 San Francisco, CA ▪ Third party verification required ▪ 3 third-party verifiers available ▪ Transparent facility recovery rate reporting on website ▪ Contractors can make informed choices on where to drop off material ▪ Additional City staff audit occurs ▪ Contractor must meet 65% recovery rate www.sfenvironment.org/construction-demolition-registered-facilities 8 Sample MRRP Report (San Francisco) 9 Example: (2022) Registered Facility Annual Report - Inbound/outbound Materials 10 Example Inspection Report 11 Seattle, WA ▪ No minimum diversion/recovery rate for projects or facilities ▪ Instead, certain materials are banned from the landfill and banned materials have a 10% residual limit at facilities ▪ Asphalt paving, bricks, concrete, metal, cardboard, new construction gypsum scrap, and unpainted and untreated wood ▪ Registered facilities must complete monthly report of estimated diversion rate and report ingoing/outgoing materials 12 ARR Comprehensive Plan: C&D Goals 1. Assess potential changes to the Qualified Processor rules ▪ Consider requiring all projects to use a Qualified Processor to improve accuracy of contractor reports and incentivize processors to increase diversion rates. ▪ Consider policy changes to remove material that is burned from diversion calculations ▪ Align Qualified Processor rules with any changes made to the C&D Ordinance diversion requirements 2. Consider requiring recycling of specific materials that have strong local end markets ▪ Conduct research and work with stakeholders to identify these materials. ▪ Consider targeting materials such as concrete, untreated wood, metal, asphalt, bricks, new construction gypsum scrap, and cardboard 13 Discussion ▪ Looking back at each city studied: what components do you think would be most feasible and effective in Austin, and why? ▪ How might the policies studied help meet the goals outlined in ARR’s Comprehensive Plan? ▪ What is your main priority when looking at potential C&D policy change for Austin? 14 Thank you Elizabeth Nelson, Planner Principal Elizabeth.Nelson@austintexas.gov 15