Collaborating in the Triangle for circular construction solutions
by Kristin Schillings
Circular Triangle seeks to transform the Triangle’s production and consumption patterns to be within the limits of planetary boundaries — i.e. create a circular economy. That comes with collaboration between the public and private sectors working together to create an economic environment that encourages sustainable practices. This summer, Circular Triangle proposed and won the opportunity to work with Triangle J Council of Government’s (TJCOG) Sandbox Challenge to create circular supply chain solutions for the Triangle’s construction waste problem.
Triangle J Council of Governments is a regional planning agency with 46 member governments that help collaborative regional efforts, including things like coordinating disaster recovery and creating plans for affordable housing. With focus areas like economic development, housing, transportation, and more, the TJCOG helps bring data-driven decision making to our communities.
In response to finding a lack of space to ideate and test innovative solutions in government, the TJCOG created the Sandbox Challenge to help address issues across multiple jurisdictions.
EPA Advancing Sustainable Materials Management, December 2020
This year, the Triangle J Council of Governments focused the Sandbox Challenge on fostering economic stability, particularly relevant in light of COVID-19’s lingering effects. With a focus on large-scale solutions, Circular Triangle saw a great opportunity to make an impact in the area of construction and demolition (C&D) waste. 600 million tons of construction and demolition debris were generated in the United States in 2018, more than twice the amount of municipal solid waste. Construction materials can be environmentally costly to produce; if it was a country, the cement industry would be the third largest CO2-emitter behind China and the US. Not only is there potential to encourage practices that generate less waste at the source, but there is also a huge opportunity for material recovery in C&D waste.
Much of what is thrown away on a construction site has the potential to be reused, but there are not currently many systems to recover these materials. Only an average of 38% of mixed C&D debris gets diverted from landfill. Among the diverse communities making up the Triangle J Council of Governments, this issue is one that counties and cities of all sizes struggle with, especially as waste is frequently transported across city and county lines. There is a great need for collaboration regionally and across sectors, as both private and public entities interact frequently in this highly regulated industry.
Principles of circularity can reduce wasted economic value, landfill waste, and the need to extract resources for production of new materials. In a rapidly growing region like the Triangle, setting up more circular systems now can have a huge impact on the effects of buildings being built and demolished in the coming years. The Triangle region could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by tens of thousands of metric tons by adopting deconstruction and material reuse rather than sticking with the status quo of waste-heavy demolition and construction with new, carbon-costly materials.
I sat down with TJCOG’s community and economic development manager, Lindsay Whitson, to find out what happens next for Circular Triangle’s winning Sandbox Challenge proposal. They kicked off the challenge in September by convening an advisory committee to help tackle this complex challenge and ideate efficient and practical solutions. The committee is composed of a diverse group of people involved in construction and waste management, from technical experts to private and public sector representatives. They plan to continue to build the group to include perspectives from as many people from different angles of the industry as possible to ensure a realistic understanding of the problem and solutions. These advisors will work together to identify the most effective means of minimizing and recapturing as much construction and demolition waste in our communities as possible. TJCOG staff will spend time finding out what has worked well in other communities, and see what lessons learned may apply in the Triangle. We look forward to seeing what innovative solutions this collaboration creates in the coming months.
