Recycling and Reporting

With state of the art equipment imported from the Netherlands, designed especially for our facility, we are able to recycle construction and demolition material efficiently at very competitive rates. We also can provide recycling reports and waste management plans that are compatible with LEED and MA CHPS requirements.  We have qualified employees that visually inspect each individual load and estimate the recycling percentage based on tonnage.

Click here for a sample recycling report

The materials we separate and their uses:

Aggregate, Brick & Concrete (ABC)

Crushed to a 6" minus and used for road base/clean fill.  This material is crushed with our machine and used on our site in Westborough and Hopkinton.

Wood

"A" - Clean, unpainted, unstained wood is shipped to a plant where it is chipped to a 2" minus product.  It is then used for extra clean fuel to create steam at a Bio Mass Power Plant.  We also work with a company that remanufactures the wood in to bark mulch.

"B" - Painted and stained wood is also shipped out and chipped to a 2" minus product and then used as fuel to create steam at a Bio Mass Power plant, or it is remanufactured into particle board.

• Note:  A significant portion of wood is not clean enough to remanufacture, therefore, it is sent to Bio Mass Power Plants  for energy recovery.  These power plants are not the same as a municipal waste combustor (incinerator).  The extreme heat produces very little ash compared to your typical incinerator.  The small amount of ash produced from these power plants is clean enough to be used as clean fill and composting.  Municipal waste combustors, on the other hand, produce about 10% ash which goes to a land fill.  Currently, this is the best way to recycle wood and is acceptable for LEED certification.

Metal

Light Iron - shredded and melted down to create new steel.
Aluminum - smelted into new aluminum.
Wire - chipped to obtain copper and mainly shipped overseas.
Copper - used to make new copper items.

Cardboard

Baled and shipped to paper mills all over the world where it is made in to paper towels, tissue, and cardboard box liners.

Asphalt Shingles

Cleaned and shipped to plants for grinding to be reused as new asphalt products or cement kilns.

Gypsum Drywall

Cleaned and shipped to be made into new wallboard.

Mixed Rigid Plastics

Baled and shipped to the far East to be recycled into plastic products.

Carpet, Ceiling Tile, and Used Gypsum Drywall

These materials can be recycled but require special handling procedures that start at the job site.

E.L. Harvey & Sons sends 90% or more of our remaining trash to incinerators to be burned and create electricity. This reduces our country's dependency on foreign oil and decreases the use of less environmentally sound power generation methods.