Recycling Coffee & Shingles

I really like good coffee – who doesn’t – and one of the best ways to get a good cup of coffee these days is the Keurig brewer and its ubiquitous K-cup.  It makes a single cup of good quality coffee, quickly.  However, what happens to the spent brewing cup is another story.  A K-Cup is a coffee machine in a cup, and has several component parts, including a multilayer plastic that isn’t easily recycled; a foil cover; a filter; and of course a little coffee.  So unlike coffee grounds and a paper filter, which make great compost, there just isn’t a simple  solution for recycling K-cups.

I recently had the chance to speak to Dr. George K. Criner, Director of the School of Economics at the University of Maine, along with doctoral candidate Travis Blackmer.  They study waste issues (and have had the pleasure of sorting many thousands of bags of household & office trash).  Dr. Criner said that the K-Cup is a perfect example of how the modern waste stream is getting more complex.  The single serve convenience of the K-Cup is hard to beat, but the recyclability is low.  And there’s a lot of packaging per serving.  In fact, in a quick study performed by Blackmer, the coffee to packaging ratio, by weight, of a bag of ground coffee is about 16:1.  A red tub of coffee like you’re familiar with, is about 8:1.  A K-Cup is about 1.4 to 1 – the amount of packaging is almost the same as the amount of coffee – and of course it only makes one cup.

One thing that we are trying now in our Wayne, New Jersey headquarters is the Grounds to Grow On K-Cup recycling program.  With this system, you receive pre-paid mailback packages to collect K-Cups.  Recycling is a volume game – almost anything is recycling, if you can get enough of it in one place – and this program allows Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to collect a large volume of used K-Cups, separate the portion pack components, compost the coffee, and burn the plastic in a waste-to-energy facility.  This is not as simple as recycling shingles (people often say that shingles, ground and ready to be added to hot mix pavement, look like coffee grounds) but is certainly progress.

Do you use K-Cups?  Have you found a good way to recycle them?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The benefits of a garden roof – reduced stormwater runoff, improved energy performance, and reduced urban heat island effect – are fairly well established.  But what you don’t often hear is how beautiful a garden roof can be.  In fact, if you’ve ever had the chance to tour one, you know it’s quite an experience.  It’s a little bit like being on a mountaintop, and with birds chirping and greenery all around you, it can be very beautiful. 

When I became a part of the roofing industry and began working with our GAF Gardenscapes line, of course the first thing I asked - as many do - was “What grows on a garden roof?”.  (The other most frequently asked question is “Will it leak?” which I cover in this blog ).  The plants that are selected for a garden roof vary by region, but they generally consist of plants that are well suited to extremes of temperature and exposure, and are often low growing.  Broadly speaking: things that grow on cliffs are good for roofs.

With my fairly steeply pitched residential roof with conventional asphalt shingle construction (and the fact that my wife doesn’t always share my passion for using the house to test everything), I don’t have the right structure to convert to a garden roof.  However, I wanted to try growing some of the plants.  Where I live in Maine, I do have some fairly rooflike areas to plant, with extremes of temperature and sun exposure.  So I am creating a small plot in my yard, as a kind of a test.

To get started, I built a small platform in my yard, then I called David Gilmore of Etera, a specialist in vegetative roofing horticulture, to ask for tips on selecting the species that would be most suited for my area.  Here is what David suggested  (the common name is followed by the Latin name):

Kinnikinnick or Bear Berry: Arctostaphylos uva –ursi
Blue Fescue: Festuca ovina glauca
Sea Thrift: Armeria maritime
and an assortment of low growing sedums, the real workhorse  of garden roofing: Sedum spurium, John Creech, Red Carpet, Fudliglut, Dragons Blood, Sedum album, Sedum sexangulare, Sedum acre

As I prepare the plot, complete with drainage mat and a simulated roof assembly, I’ll post pictures and update my progress!

LEED Public Comment Period Now Open

Professional Roofing Contractors, you have one more short week to weigh in on the upcoming versions of LEED. 

Generally there are many positive developments in the updated rating system but the roofing industry in general can always do more the be involved in the process.

There are 7 rating systems, you can't comment on them all; so start with Homes if you're residential and Building Design & Construction and Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance if you're residential.  Download the 'clean' version and search for keywords like roof, solar, and reflectivity to make sure you're opinion is heard in these key sections during this rare opportunity!   

Green Building Megatrends

We tell our contractors, if you’re not selling green, you’re missing one of the greatest market shifts in history.  This shift isn’t slowing down, it’s speeding up.  Here are some of the big changes we see coming:

1.  Zero everything:  zero waste plants, zero net energy buildings, zero waste construction, zero down solar financing.
2. Existing Buildings More Important: The LEED Rating System, that compares the ‘green-ness’ of buildings, keeps growing, and is now in use in 161 countries.  Of the types of buildings rated (homes, schools, new construction, etc), LEED for Existing Buildings is now the #1 rating system.  That means more Existing Buildings are choosing to get rated than any other type.
3. New Codes:  The International Green Construction Code (IgCC) will get adopted by more municipalities.  It’s aimed at commercial buildings, and when it gets adopted, it applies to both existing and new construction.
4. Increased importance of water issues:  we’re not hearing Zero Net Water Use buildings yet, but that’s where things will probably head.

Hidden in these trends continues to be a great opportunity for roofing contractors – because renewable energy and rainwater reclaim typically go on the roof; because Existing Buildings need something called Commissioning to be eligible for LEED rating, and commissioning involves a full roof inspection and maintenance plan; and because the IgCC will drive business for recyclable and reflective materials, as well as energy conservation, plus a ‘Building Service Life Plan’, in which proper roof design and maintenance are critical.

Energy Efficiency is the New Granite Countertop

Hi, I'm Tony Ruffine, Vice President of Sustainability and Solar.  Marty asked me to put together a blog post about what GAF sees in the market.  One trend I’ve noticed so far this year is that more mainstream publications are writing about sustainable practices in buildings.  All of us in the market notice these sorts of things: architects are asking about reflective roofing, distribution partners want to make sure that products are designed to ship and store efficiently, homeowners are asking about recycling and commercial property owners are thinking about their rooftops as a potential location for solar.  The above line from an article I saw summed up the trend for me—energy efficient design is something all of us are looking for.

Readers of Marty’s blog know that GAF takes these challenges seriously—and have seen the steps that Marty has taken to keep sustainability important in everything we do at GAF (I particularly like the addition of the Fuelly to his truck).  GAF certainly eliminates waste and energy use in everything we do and I am sure that most of the roofing contractors and distributors we work with do the same. 

The new thing we all have to do is to teach.  We have seen how important it is for the roofing industry to take the lead in teaching our customers how roofing has an important is in sustainable design.  Last year, GAF launched an innovative partnership with the CMRA to help contractors find local shingle recyclers.  During our recent sales meeting, we launched several programs that will help contractors and distributors talk to their customers about sustainability and to make their own businesses more sustainable.  We encourage the industry to talk about the topics I mentioned above, or some of the other topics covered in Marty’s blog (like energy audits) and to work with the right partners in your area to help tell the roofing story.  This year we will be talking about more programs and alliances, as well as experimenting with new sustainability tools.  Are there groups in your area that help you tell the sustainability story, or questions that homeowners and building owners ask about roofing that are hard to answer?  Let us know.  It is up to all of us to make sure that people know how significant roofing is to sustainable building.

[Thanks for the interesting post, Tony  - Marty]