DOW 5.5" Roofboard Donation

Although the donation took place about 3 months ago, I am posting the entry in order to keep better track of recycling and reusing efforts here at CEI.

There is a teachers group in the Sacramento and Bay Area ( San Francisco) which takes misc. building materials as well as other materials such as binder and office supplies and designs projects with instructions that teachers can use. They have a 12k square foot warehouse where teachers can peruse their selection and purchase supplies which would normally be quite expensive at a very low price. They are a non-profit group and any charges they make to the teacher/customers only keeps their operation running.

For over a year we have a large stack of 5.5" Dow Roofboard in our yard and when I discovered this group I though of the insulation. The representative at RAFT ( resource area for teachers) said that they would LOVE to have the DOW, as many teachers might use it to make mothers day presents ( stick floral arrangements into a block of DOW) or other crafts projects.

Below is the teachers group picking up the insulation:

CEI ROOFING CALIFORNIA MARKETING VIDEO

Materials Added to be recycled - 4.2.09

Today some employees pulled up a truck to the dumpster and were about to throw away a good deal of metal. I stopped them and helped them unload the material onto a pallet for later recycling.

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Common Roofing products which can be recycled

If you keep in mind the list of recyclable # codes, you can usually look on the bottom of the material in question and see if it conforms to these numbers.


Keeping those numbers in mind, I looked in our yard for several products which had these numbers on them. What I found was as follows ( although prob not limited):



There are other products which may be able to be recycled such as broken screws ( metal) insulation and membrane plates ( metal) cardboard membrane inner tubes , all cardboard boxes ( pipe boots, corners , etc ) as well as pallet wrap and shrink wrap. I know that shrink wrap is #7 on the recycling logos even though it doesn't mention it on the wrap.

Recycling Efforts at CEI to date

Since the beginning of Januarary I have been trying to recycle all that I can at our shop. The thing that most people dont understand is that often times recycling actually costs money. As Kermit the frog said " it isnt easy being green". With that in mind, I have been trying to do all that I can so that our costs of recycling are minimized. In order to minimize costs I have done the following:

- called waste management companies and discovered a company who takes wood for free recycing. Therefore, we try to put all of ourwood in a dump trailer and when it gets full, we take it up the highway a few minutes and unload it. After unloading the wood, we get a receipt which says that we recycled the wood.



This is important for documenting our recycling efforts in case we are ever asked to give proof that we are trying to do our part for the environment.

I did the exact same thing for paper, and found a place that said if we deliver it , they will take it for free. The same went for other odd items such as acrylic from skylights. They gave me documentation upon dropping off the material , which I have included below. In this particular case, they actually paid us for the acrylic scrap. Although it wasn't much it helped offset some of the costs involved in the recycling effort. Again, when you are trying to build a reputation for yourself for being green, it will take effort, time, and in some cases money to build that reputation.


As of right now, for most plastic labeled 1-7, I take them to a local recycler who takes them for free. These labeling numbers are very important for companies looking to recyle their products. At our company many things are recyclable and fall under these categories. I will show several roofing material in our yard in a later post that other roofing companies could recycler as well.



At our shop we have been saving up, flatening in some cases, and hoarding a bunch of our cardboard, and I have posted an ad on craigslist, whereby a man responded and said he would LOVE to take the cardboard for free.


Another thing we have been recycling, and have been for a great deal of time is scrap metal. We get about 75$ per ton for scrap metal, and it is an easy thing to recycle , as well as get money back to do so. Again, when you take in your scrap metal, you will be given a receipt with the actual weight. The actual weight is good for excel charts and figure because you can say something like " In 2009, we recycle 25 tons of scrap metal, thus keeping the material out of the landfill."

The other materials we have been recycling are some of the most basic things: Bottles and Cans! I requested 2 FREE recycling bins which we collect all of our cans and bottles and then turn in for some currency. I also built a recycling bin out of an existing trash can and separated it into two holes. One hole is for plastic bottles and the other for cans. This makes it so you don't have to sort them when you get to the recycling center.

Also, what we have done is participated in free E-Waste recycling drives where we donated all of our old computers, printers and other electronic waste to a local elementary school recycling drive. Again, we got photos of what we were recycling as well as other relevant documentation of the event.