[Raj Venugopal]

When I built our house, my framing subs wasted incredible amounts of exterior sheathing. Literally dumpsters full. Since then, I've gradually dropped my actual wastage factor down to around 1-2% on most stone jobs, maybe less... I remember carting away lots of off-cuts...now I can normally get a few cuts off each stone. In many cases, my "chuck" pile stones don't have any factory edges on them because they've been cut and re-cut.

While there is an additional time factor to copious marking and cutting, the ability to add to the bottom line and avoid dumping and product return time labour hours is considerable over time. It's also a pride of workmanship feature for homeowners to see. I will regularly point to my small waste piles to show my clients that we respect every dollar they trust us with. No homeowner feels good about paying for our ability to snap a cutting line, cut and dispose the ends without trying to reuse.

Although production costs are dependent on a lot of things, I imagine increased demand (which raises prices) is related to shoddy attention to reducing our total consumption of product and relaxed standards on maximum material efficiency.

As landscaping professionals it is our collective responsibility to lower our wasteage factor. An amateur looks at his or her work as a one-time process that revolves around their own interests. A professional tries to improve with each job...to get better and better for their clients, themselves and the industry. Depending on the job, I also like to sequence the construction to allow burying our off-cuts to avoid off-site dumping. If the pieces are small enough it's a convenient, environmental option.

[Stonehenge]

Raj, I don't mean to poo-poo this nice post, but watching the bottom line usually doesn't mean fishing through scrap brick looking for one to cut.

Let's lay out a comparison -

Say there's a brick paver patio that requires 700 cut brick along the perimeter that could all be cut in place with a Partner-type saw. 700 cuts would work out to roughly 250-300 lineal feet of cutting on most of our projects. We can cut pavers in place at a rate of about 3 feet per minute. So it's taking us about 100 minutes to cut that patio in. Multiply that by a round labor figure of $50/hr and we have $83 in labor to cut the patio in (that's the amount billed to the client). Let's say that using our method, we waste an entire skid of pavers, or 100 sqft, and let's say those pavers cost $3/sqft. That's an added $300, for a total of $383.

Now, let's look at the other method. I'm going to throw a couple assumptions out there. The first is, the entire patio is marked at one time, but later, cut pieces are re-marked to take the place of full pavers, to best utilize those pavers. Let's say that you're re-marking half of those 700 cuts. And let's say that fishing through the cut pile and finding a paver, then marking it and cutting it individually takes 45 seconds apiece. That's 262.5 minutes to cut that half of the pavers. And because you aren't cutting the other pavers in place (if you did you couldn't re-use cut pieces), let's say the cuts on fresh pavers, done one by one, takes about 20 seconds apiece (pull it from patio, place somewhere to cut, cut, put back into patio). That's another 116.67 minutes, for a total of 379 minutes. And let's say that your waste for that same project is 20 sqft, or $60. 6.32 hours at $50 is $316, add the $60 and you have $376.

So you've saved $7.

But you've lost (6.32 -1.67) 4.65 hours of production that could have been spent making money on the next project.

And those wasted pavers don't always have to be landfilled - many concrete companies crush old concrete and re-use it, and accept concrete pavers like they do any other concrete.

Now, you might be able to work your method as a great marketing angle and charge a premium for it, but as far as labor efficiency, you could do better and be more profitable using other methods.

Devil's advocate and all.

[Raj Venugopal]

Interesting.

In our market, however, the pavers we use (Cdn $) are $5+ mark, give or take a few cents, so the material cost is higher, plus 14% in harmonized sales tax. Cultured stone, for example, is $17 +/- plus 14%, and that's with our dollars nearly at par. The American consumer has a much greater command over keeping a cap on building material prices (hat's off!), so there's probably a different perspective on the value of building materials.

Plus, the labour for this kind of work is cheaper than the going rate for value-added work. Notwithstanding the math, which I don't have time to really think about well, it's an interesting trade off regarding the strictly financial aspect of lower wastage.

As for disposal, there are a few places to dump concrete, but my cost to load and dump is higher than it's worth.

[dan deutekom]

If the conditions warrant I will use the cutoffs to get more from the brick. I will cut like Stone for the first 200 linear feet. If there are enough big pieces to warrant laying them down to cut in the next 100 feet then fine I will do it. It dosn't take long to pick up the big pieces and lay them instead of full brick but I will not go picking through bits and pieces looking for brick that will come close to fitting. I also won't bury my waste on the customers site. It just isn't professional. I get ticked off when I dig around and find waste construction material. I know the chances of anyone finding it behind a wall or something is slim but... Also if you save all this brick by cutting all the bits you can, what do you do with the leftover sections of good brick you didn't use?

[SodSquad]

Where are you located Raj?

[Raj Venugopal]

Two points...

One, I'm talking about reasonable efforts to conserve and reduce waste, not taking excessive amounts of time picking through chuck piles looking for the perfect scrap.

The other is re burying off cuts. I'm very much a professional in this industry I can assure you, and I don't see a problem with this. If we're talking about small amounts of waste, I see no problem putting them under steps...but not behind a wall, walkway, or within 18" of the top of a driveway. I get your point though...I've dug up piles of crap buried by other contractors, including a fridge door in a driveway.

As for larger leftover pieces, we either store them (if it's a stone we'll likely use again), or if it's a big piece like you suggest...off-site disposal.

Reducing waste isn't about saving a couple bucks by spending hours rooting through dump piles. It's about making a choice to consume less resources, pollute less and waste less by deliberate action.

Originally posted by dan deutekom
If the conditions warrant I will use the cutoffs to get more from the brick. I will cut like Stone for the first 200 linear feet. If there are enough big pieces to warrant laying them down to cut in the next 100 feet then fine I will do it. It dosn't take long to pick up the big pieces and lay them instead of full brick but I will not go picking through bits and pieces looking for brick that will come close to fitting. I also won't bury my waste on the customers site. It just isn't professional. I get ticked off when I dig around and find waste construction material. I know the chances of anyone finding it behind a wall or something is slim but... Also if you save all this brick by cutting all the bits you can, what do you do with the leftover sections of good brick you didn't use?

[SodSquad]

Amen

[site]

We do it like Dan D. I don't bury any waste. Lots of other people do though. I have tons of old bottles that I dug up around old houses- not to mention shingles car batteries, you name it. Now on some of our sites they are starting to go for LEEDS certification and they are careful about how much waste is generated, how local the supply source is, how much water will be used, etc. I think it's great. It makes me sad to see a 30 yard dumpster filled up with at least 50% recyclable material. Land fills- the gold mines for future generations.

[mrusk]

There is a big difference in burrying bottles, car batteries, etc verus paver scraps.

[Stonehenge]

Interesting how there are different sides ot this debate, and where people are falling.

The project we're on right now, we've buried lots of scrap. We actually "recycled" several tons of decorative stone, too. The patio was raised, and we had approx 260 sqft of area 18" deep that had to be filled. We used retaining wall scraps as well as paver scraps at the bottom of the of the fill area, and my reasoning is this -

In any road construction where there must be several feet of base prep, I see crews start with crushed stone and/or concrete that's up to 12" in size. Big stuff. With each layer they progressively get smaller in stone size intil it's down to 3/4". If it works for the DOT, it can work for my patio, too. I'm diligent in spreading the scraps so there isn't a big pile in one spot where there could be voids that settle out later.

And the decorative stone we recycled was stuff that the client wanted removed as part of a total landscape renovation. The stone was durable and very angular, and when we tested it, it compacted very well. So we used what was a $60/ton stone as compactable fill. Worked great and saved us money.

Along these lines, more in the interest of cost savings than the more noble purpose of reduction of waste, I've been trying to toy with the idea of having a central receptacle for our city for what I'd call "scrap-rap"; broken and cut retaining wall block and pavers that would then be used for erosion control or as a base for some vehicular pavements. Free to dump and free to use. I'm 100% certain there would need to be some monitoring done to ensure that fridge doors didn't end up in the pile, and for that reason there might have to be a small fee per ton to dump and to take.

It seems that issues related to LEEDS certification and the general movement to things green could make our jobs more difficult, but could also open up some doors of opportunity.

[dan deutekom]

Jeff

I am not adverse to using scrap where possible for base but the opportunities are limited. If I am doing a driveway, front walk and a small retaining wall my dig out and base is all done before the stone even arrives at the job site. It is a little difficult to use the scraps as part of the base. In the situation you have described I would use the scraps as fill as long as they can go deep enough not to be heaved up by the frost. But when you lay the pavers on top those scraps have got to be carted away.

Interesting idea about a scrap-rap receptacle. I bet the local stone yard could make it work even if they charged a modest fee for handling.

[PSUscaper]

I do not go out of my way to recycle scraps, but as the price of brick goes up, and the styles that are being chosen are more and more expensive, I am starting to give that a second thought.

I've had some big issues recently with the fact that 1 row of techo bloc pavers is close to 50 bucks, and when I have a 1/4 pallet left over at the end of a job, it starts to make me sick.

Many suppliers are selling 'pallet size' only orders. Others charge broken pallet fees. On top of that, the time associated with running a few bricks short on a job and running out to get them costly. Also, because of the mass variety of styles and colors these days, it is difficult to commit to ordering 'just enough' brick to do the the job because if you are short, who knows how long it may take to get more in.

As a small company, who's jobs are often in the 200-400 sq ft range, I've realized that the world is not very nice to me. Everyone has gotten the 'BIG' syndrome, making it seem like if I'm not ordering by the truckload, they don't care.

I'm sick of the attitude suppliers have when it comes to the cost of materials. I don't order 10's of thousands of dollars of bricks for each job, and yes, 50 bucks in broken pallet charges bothers me.

So, yes, I'm starting to recyle some of my cut pieces more than I have in the past. I hate doing it, but it is starting to become a necessary evil. Maybe the time savings in chucking them equals the cost in recycling, but the cost of ordering a extra pallet or even a extra layer for that matter is becoming more.

On the subject of disposal, I may be lucky as we have a concrete recycling plant close by that is very reasonable. Unless I'm filling in a raised patio or set of stairs, I rarely barely scraps on site. That may change if the recycling plant were to close down or was not so convenient.