Zanker Recycling are a construction and demolition waste recovery operation based, rather ironically, on a closed landfill site near San Jose, California. As I saw earlier at California Waste Services, the scale of their operation can only be described as mammoth. Some describe it locally as the Disneyland of construction waste.
The site is broadly divided into three plants. Site one captures materials, timber, concrete and brick, for crushing and shredding into landscaping materials. This site can process 70 tonnes of wodd per hour. Site three takes comingled construction and demolition waste and separates into its main constituent materials of metal, wood, plastics etc. The remaining site is an anaerobic digestion facility producing electricity from organic waste.
The construction and demolition facility is consented for a staggering 23,500 tonnes of waste per day. Put in context, it could process all of Auckland’s annual C&D waste in 25 days.
The plant benefits from local and state laws that prevent C&D waste going directly to landfill and more recently a bylaw in Palo Alto that mandates deconstruction for all site clearances. The site also attracts waste from non-C&D companies who have active carbon and reduction programmes.
The scale of processing achievable from materials recycling facilities is staggering. But as I’ve seen both at Zanker and California Waste Services, the best way to maximise what these places can achieve is to have regulations in place that direct waste away from landfills.
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