Nearly all of the cities in Santa Clara County require builders
to recycle junk from their construction sites, and now Gilroy is
one of them.
Gilroy – Nearly all of the cities in Santa Clara County require builders to recycle junk from their construction sites, and now Gilroy is one of them.
Most builders in the city have been recycling excess wood, metal, concrete and other debris from their demolition and construction projects over the past years, but now they must recycle at least 50 percent of their discarded materials when working on projects greater than 5,000 square feet.
“It’s a good starting point for us,” said Leslie Wilcox, the city’s Environmental Programs assistant who has spent the last year developing the ordinance with her supervisor, Lisa Jensema. “We’re completely open to raising the [50 percent requirement] if we find we have good compliance from construction and demolition companies.”
Fifty percent is the average threshold for Santa Clara County cities because most recycling facilities can only guarantee recycling for 50 percent of the material they receive. Palo Alto requires builders to recycle between 70 and 80 percent
Local builder Chris Cote is constructing a solar housing development on the corner of Hanna State and Gurries Drive, and he said it produces two-and-a-half tons of wood scraps a week. Despite this, he said he recycles 90 percent of all the debris generated on the roughly 30,000-square-feet of construction space.
Councilman Peter Arellano agreed with the need to up the percentage, but City Administrator Jay Baksa said raising the requirement too far above 50 percent could result in non-compliance and cumbersome punitive measures.
“You’re project has taught us a lot,” Baksa told Cote. “We could be like Palo Alto and be 90 percent and be good to the environment, but we don’t want to be whacking [builders] over the head.”
Bob Martin is the vice president of construction at Dividend Homes in Morgan Hill, which has worked in Gilroy, and he said recycling has already become “pretty standard” for Dividend and others, and it actually helps keep sites clean.
One local developer, who hires construction companies like Dividend Homes, said the new ordinance might also create new recycling companies.
The council could always revisit the issue in a year, Mayor Al Pinheiro said, after one full construction season has passed.
“It’s the first baby step,” Pinheiro said.
Cote’s project has been so successful with recycling because he has bins labeled in English and Spanish that show workers where to throw wood, metal, concrete, and other debris. Sorting at the site makes it easier for South Valley Disposal and Recycling to transfer the materials to recycling facilities.
Without the initial sorting, materials get jumbled together, and recycling facilities loose efficiency.
“Some operations have the resources to separate all their garbage,” said Phil Couchee, general manager of SVDR, which is the only entity that can be paid for reuse and recycling collection services in Gilroy.
