New center to examine applications of construction waste
 ne man’s trash is another
man’s treasure.” --- The truth in this adage is evident
in the sheer volume of “recycled” merchandise Americans
purchase at thrift sales, secondhand stores and flea markets.
Now, engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University
of New Hampshire have launched the Recycled Materials Resource Center,
an effort that encourages a similar waste-to-resources approach in the
construction industry. “It’s really to look at how we can
build our infrastructure in a way that doesn’t rely so much on
virgin materials, and to reuse things that traditionally have been considered
waste and managed as waste,” says Craig
Benson Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of civil and environmental
engineering and center co-director.
Manufacturers generally landfill materials such as
used foundry sand, coal-combustion byproducts, asphalt shingles and
textile scraps from auto interiors. But with minimal processing, these
materials could find new life in everything from road-building applications
to insulation. “You’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions
because you’re not excavating new materials or buying new materials
to build things—you’re using materials where you’ve
already expended the carbon to get them,” says Benson. “And
so, the amount of carbon that you need to translate them into a construction
project is far less than what it would take to go out and get virgin
materials and process them.”
Funded by a four-year, $6.2 million grant from the
Federal Highway Administration, the Recycled Materials Resource Center,
or RMRC, will focus in particular on using recycled materials in transportation
infrastructure applications. It capitalizes on complimentary research
strengths at both universities—at UW-Madison, expertise in geotechnical
engineering and transportation infrastructure and, at New Hampshire,
in environmental aspects of recycled materials and life-cycle analysis
methods.
Center faculty, staff and students will conduct both fundamental and
applied research, pooling their skills in what Benson calls a full-service,
one-stop-shopping approach to recycled materials. “We can do everything—from
basic research to full-scale implementation and demonstration, and from
training students to training people in practice,” he says. “We
can do basic scholarly publications to develop standards and methods.”
The University of New Hampshire was home to a similar center until earlier
this year. “We have strong ties to the 50 states that we serve,
and that will be important as we move forward with the new center,”
says Kevin Gardner, an associate professor of civil engineering and
center co-director. “We hope to be able to effectively identify
the major roadblocks to the more widespread, wise use of recyclable
materials, and to be able to conduct research, training and outreach
that will be effective in removing these roadblocks.”
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