Bill:
I appreciate your point - the marketplace already reflects the sensible,
economic, available deconstruction technologies quite well, as nearly every
town has somebody in business of salvaging building materials. Given that
the "wreckers" and "salvage operators" who operate the (very) few businesses
making a living in this area are usually operating on a shoestring, without
a "technology development" budget, is this an area in which some research
into new salvage technologies might pay-off? Some states have
"market-development" organizations that might be able to fund
technology-development and transfer projects. Can you envision any research
that such programs might beneficially undertake? or do you think this would
be a waste of time?
I ask this because here, in Seattle/King County, we have benefited from the
excellent technology-development and transfer work of the Clean Washington
Center (before they were de-funded by the Washington State Department of
Trade and Economic Development). As an example of the benefits this group
provided: Their research into technologies for glass recycling led to the
establishment of a processing-plant in Seattle that is using recycled glass
to produce products with precise specifications for technical applications
such as filtration of gases and liquids and sandblasting. King County, in
fact, recently purchased 18 tons of filter-sand to charge the sand-based
water filtration system at a municipal Olympic swimming-pool.
It has been very productive for us that the Clean Washington Center was able
to help this technology develop to the point where we are actually able to
obtain products made from recycled materials that perform well and are
competitively priced. That experience leads me to ask you if such an
approach might benefit the "deconstruction" industry.
Fortunately, by the way, the Clean Washington Center was able to keep its
stable of engineers together and continues to apply its talents to
developing recycling technologies under the name "CWC." Our state,
unfortunately, no longer benefits directly from this work, however.
Thanks
eric
Eric Nelson (206) 296-4324 and Karen Hamilton (206) 296-4317
Environmental Purchasing Program
King County Procurement Services
500 - 4th Ave, Room 620
Seattle, WA 98104
> Environmental Purchasing web-site:
> http://www.metrokc.gov/procure/green
>
>
>
>