Materials and Resources 4.1 - Recycled Content - 10% Total Construction Material from Recycled Items (post consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
February 3, 2008 – 8:21amSame as credit MR 4.2, except for percentage of total construction material from recycled items (20% in Materials and Resources 4.2)
10% of Total Construction Material from Recycled Items (post consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
Intention:
- Reduce impact from extraction and processing of virgin materials
- Increase use of recycled content in building
Implementation:
There are two types of recycled material:
- Post Consumer: material already been used and will be reused for another application.
- examples: plastic, paper, glass, and metal
- Pre-Consumer: material form the manufacturer that has not been used and will NOT be reused
- examples: wheat straw, sawdust, fly ash
- To clarify, we must use materials with recycled content such that “the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer content constitutes at least 10% (20% for MR 4.2) BASED ON COST, of the total value of the materials in the project.
- Total Materials Cost —> 2 options
- 45% construction cost (total construction cost of entire project multiplied by 0.45) OR
- actual materials cost
- benefit of using actual material cost rather than default 45% is that projects with < 45% actual materials cost would find it easier to achieve the 10% and 20% (MR 4.2) thresholds since equation of recycled content = total recycled content cost divided by total material cost.
- For Calculating Assembly Recycled Content (composed of multiple materials)
- consider percents by weight of post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled content.
- Total Materials Cost —> 2 options
- Exclude:
- MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing)
- Elevator equipment
- Includes:
- Anything but MEP & elevator equipment that is recycled.
- Furniture can be used, only if used consistently in credits MR 3.1 through MR 7.
- Steel products with no information available, assume recycled content to be 25% post consumer.
Codes/Standards Applied:
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14021 - 1999
- They define what recycled material is
Extra Credit:
- 30% (instead of 10% or 20% as in MR4.2)total construction material from recycled items
Submittal Phase:
- Construction (tip: all Materials and Resources credits are submitted in the construction phase except MR P1)
Links from Reference Guide:
- Recycled Content Product Directory
- GreenSpec - Building Green, Inc.
- Guide to Resource-Efficient Building Elements
- Oikos
- U.S.EPA Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines Program
Other Materials & Resources Credits
- MR P1 - Storage and Collection of Recyclables (prerequisite)
- MR 1.1 - Building Reuse, Maintain 75% of Existing Walls, Floors, & Roof
- MR 1.2 - Building Reuse, Maintain 95% of Existing Walls, Floors & Roof
- MR 1.3 - Building Reuse, Maintain 50% of Interior Non-Structural Elements
- MR 2.1 - Construction Waste Management, Divert 50% from Disposal
- MR 2.2 - Construction Waste Management, Divert 75% from Disposal
- MR 3.1 - Materials Reuse, 5%
- MR 3.2 - Materials Reuse, 10%
- MR 4.1 - Recycled Content, 10% (post-consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
- MR 4.2- Recycled Content, 20% (post-consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
- MR 5.1 - Regional Materials, 10% Extracted, Processed & Manufactured Regionally
- MR 5.2 - Regional Materials, 20% Extracted, Processed & Manufactured Regionally
- MR 6 - Rapidly Renewable Materials
- MR 7 - Certified Wood
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5 Responses to “Materials and Resources 4.1 - Recycled Content - 10% Total Construction Material from Recycled Items (post consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)”
a question needs clarification:
A particleboard made from lumber off-cuts from the milling of poplar trees. This is example of :
a - post industrial recycled content
b - post consumer recycled content
my answer is a because the lumber off-cuts prior to consumer use.
any comments?
By Lilian on May 20, 2008
Lilian,
I believe you are correct. If these are the only two answers, then definitely B is wrong because the consumer has not yet seen the product. A makes sense because it’s material made after production. It’s basically a pre-consumer/post-industrial material, i would say. Any further comments?
By Pat on May 21, 2008
You are working on a project and the owner decided to pursue LEED certification
after construction has already started. You are trying to document MR Credit 4,
Recycled Content, and have asked a representative of your supplier about the
recycled content in the steel framing members. She tells you that all of her firm’s
suppliers attempt to provide steel with 80% post-consumer recycled content or better.
Using this information, you may count what percentage of recycled content in the
steel toward the credit?
A) 0%
B) 5%
C) 25%
D) 40%
E) 80%
answer given is C….could anyone explain.
Thanks
By rutvi on Jul 22, 2008
Hi Rutvi,
If you look on page 266 of the reference guide, it explains:
“For steel products where no recycled content information is available, assume the recycled content to be 25%”
My educated guess is that since the knowledge about the recycled content in the steel members isn’t really for sure known. She just tells you that the suppliers attempt to provide 80% post-consumer or better, but attempting and having something official on paper is totally different. Someone can attempt to have 80% but only have 50%, or even 0%! So, based on that, we dont have enough information and can only assume 25% per the reference guide. I hope this helps!
By Pat on Jul 22, 2008
Thanks Pat!!!
By rutvi on Jul 30, 2008