Making the good earth better
Using recycled materials saves
money, saves green space and
makes construction projects better
industrial and landscaping necessities from the beginning of a project,
say by providing construction fill or hauling demolition waste, to the end
of it, by providing pavers, plants and ponds. It had to, according to son
John Kurtzhe had seven kids and had to create enough business to support
all of them and enough areas for each to specialize in. On the industrial
side, that includes construction fill, sand and aggregates as well as removing
and recycling demolition waste material.
Kurtz Brothers
Kurtz Brothers' expansion came largely in the area of salvaging natural,
construction and industrial materials and reusing them to create a variety
of product lines and services. One of the company's biggest growth areas,
for instance, and one that shows its proactive stance in the industry, is
in recycling spent foundry sand for construction fill. It is estimated that
80% of byproducts from foundries go to waste in landfills, some $125 million
worth a year, but that is beginning to change, and largely due to Kurtz
Brothers' efforts.
The use of recycled products such as foundry sand can reduce costs in
these money-conscious times, and they are being increasingly acceptedthe
result of a massive educational effortas they are proven to meet high
performance standards. Foundry sand, used in metal casting, has been shown
to be "cleaner than dirt," says John Kurtz, that is, than native
farm soil and commercial potting soil. Spent foundry sand can be recycled,
and is being recycled, by Kurtz Brothers, into construction fill, road subbase,
flowable fill, pipe bedding and other products. It also is easy to grade,
provides excellent drainage and saves money. But builders, engineers and
architects need proof that products work as they should, says Kurtz. "It
is nothing new, just sand," he says, "and it has excellent engineering
properties. It works!!!"
How it began
Kurtz Brothers got into making synthetic soils using foundry sand and
other recycled materials in a roundabout way: many of its sites were on
the land that became the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and the parks' takeover
forced the company to seek out a new direction. It got involved with Dr.
Harry Hoitink at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC)
in Wooster. "We thought the guy was wacko at first," says Kurtz,
but they were soon working on manufacturing soils. OARDC is involved in
the testing and analysis of Kurtz Brothers's ideas.
Kurtz Brothers has worked with the Ford Motor Company's Cleveland Casting
Plant to reuse over 5 million tons of foundry sand, a huge cost savings
to Ford, recycling them into customized soil blends. "A quarter of
a million tons come out of Cleveland Casting yearly," says Kurtz. "What
do you do with it? We make lemons out of lemonade, and we put our two problems
togetherthe need to use waste products and the need to develop high-functioning
new productsto solve each other." The result: specialized end
products from more than 25 foundries in the area.
New benchmarks based on extensive testing were put out by the Ohio EPA
a decade ago to allow this, under policy 400.007. Ohio is the home of the
nation's largest number of foundries, and this is the country's most progressive
such policy, says Kurtz. The policy allowed Kurtz Brothers to be granted
the first PTI, or permit to install, unrestricteda key wordtopsoil
blends using the Ford byproduct.
Along the highway
The reclaimed sand's effectiveness and safety in products for highway
construction is being demonstrated; the Ohio Department of Transportation
and Ohio Turnpike Commission are now using the by-product, saving taxpayer
money. The OTC has used more than 150,000 tons of it, according to the OEPA
protocols, over the past two years, including supporting the new Turnpike
bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley, a $51 million project handled by Trumbull
Corp., Pittsburgh, and National Engineering and Contracting, Strongsville,
completed this fall. Kurtz Brothers supplied 58,000 tons of foundry sand
for the 450-ft-by-55-ft terraced embankment.
The embankment was reinforced using a geo-grid material by Tensar Earth
Technologies and marketed by Contech Construction Products and stabilized
using a mechanically stabilized earth retention system. This saved up to
60% of the cost over conventional retaining walls and allowed the finished
project to overgrow with planting, so it would blend with nature.
In a nearby project, a third lane was added to the eastbound side near
the bridge by Great Lakes Construction Co, Hinckley, in a $14 million project.
This necessitated a supporting embankment itself supported by a 5,200-ft-long,
20-ft-wide and 15-ft-deep precast concrete modular wall and steel reinforcing
strips set into the granular subbase backfill by the Reinforced Earth Co.,
Aurora, IL. The wall system is engineered to resist applied loads. It was
backfilled withyou guessed itfoundry sand, 54,000 tons of it.
Kurtz Brothers supplied both projects, using 25 trucks to deliver the
goods for 10 weeks, in two shifts, day and night. It also supplied 10,000
tons of foundry sand to repair a slide on I-271, between Route 8 and the
Turnpike, for ODOT, with the project benefiting from the excellent drainage
and compaction offered by foundry sand products and money saved because
of no need for forms.
But one of the firm's biggest commitments was to the Abrams Creek Improvement
Project at the airport, to divert and enclose the waterway to allow for
runway expansion. Some 20,000 cy of flowable fill, cementitious slurry used
as a backfill instead of compacted earth, was used as pipe bedding around
four 10-ft diameter pipes. The product can fill voids in irregular excavation
and hard to reach places; conventional fill would not have worked here due
to pipe placement and project design, says Kurtz. The fill is self-leveling
and hardens in hours, and it can be customized with varying admixtures and
water ratios.
Flowable fill is getting more and more popular in Northeast Ohio, says
Kurtz, and the firm had the stats necessary to convince the city and the
Federal Aviation Administration that the product would deliver. The project
saved money, as well, that would have been spent on virgin aggregate.
Spent foundry sand can also be used for grouts, specialty soils, cement,
asphalt, bricks and pavers, with the EPA allowing more leeway when the sand
is used in finished products. One of the niftiest was its use to make the
pit blocks for the Cleveland Grand Prix.
Recycled construction waste
Foundry sand aside, Kurtz Brothers is committed to other kinds of recycling
as well. It's estimated, for instance, that from 20% to 40% of the material
in our landfills is from construction waste. Kurtz Brothers is involved
in reducing this amount as well. It recycles materials from demolition and
construction sites, renting containers or accepting delivered materials,
and taking asphalt, brick, concrete, wood debris, and so on, with the ability
to capture ferrous metals for recycling. If the parking lot is big enough,
says Kurtz, materials can be sorted on site, but sometimes the materials
are sorted at the Kurtz Brothers facility. For LEED projects, though, Kurtz
Brothers does it on-site, being careful to record data about what is recycled
to earn those precious LEED points. Kurtz Brothers supports the efforts
of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, says John Kurtz, adding that
several area contractors, such as Panzica, are getting bigger in their green
efforts.
Other manufacturing and waste byproducts such as hardwood, sewage sludge,
steel slag and plant trimmings and other organics are also used to make
Kurtz Brothers' products. The clean wood waste from pallets, trees and scrap
lumber is used to make the firm's line of colored mulch. Kurtz Brothers
bulk product offerings include soils, mulches, gravel, limestone, aggregates,
slag, compost, sand and athletic field products, while the company offers
pavers, wallstone and decorative stone.
Landscape centers offer bulk aggregates, pavers, soils mulches, and so
on, as well as plants, grasses, and other nursery stock, even tools, accessories,
lighting and pond supplies. And some of the manufactured soils are specifically
created for the green industry, golf tees and greens and athletic fields-an
association with the Firestone course in Akron led to a breakthrough here,
as did a research partnership with OARDC. Kurtz Brothers also offers processing
and stockpiling capabilities as well as a trucking fleet.
Ultimately, companies can benefit from Kurtz Brothers services, and its
line of manufactured products of proven capabilities, reduce waste and save
land and natural resources, while saving money for themselves and their
customers. BXM
Reducing waste
The EPA has launched a GreenScapes Alliance to reduce waste by a united
effort to reduce, reuse and recycle waste materials in large land use activities,
including roadside landscaping, brownfields revitalization and the beautification
of office complexes, parks and golf courses. It hopes to involve landscape
contractors and maintenance companies as well as golf facilities, highway
and street constructors, and agencies that do highway maintenance. The Alliance
wants to provide information on resource conservation and the cost savings
achieved by reducing material use and waste and well as the performance
of recycled-content and bio-based products. See www.epa.cov/greenscapes
or www.epa.cov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/index.htm for more.
In other news, scientists at Salford University in England have found
a way to recycle the waste caused by recycling paper, such as fibrous clay
and limestone residue, into building materials like boards and blocks using
cement and gypsum binders. The researchers are also looking at using granite
slurry and crushed plasterboard as part of the mixture.
