Recycling Asphalt Shingles is a Green Alternative to the Landfill

I've recently begun a major renovation of my 1890s Victorian home in the Cole neighborhood in Metro Denver. Demolition actually began five days ago. The plan is to add a master suite, guest bed and bath, and a small office. To make the room needed we are adding three new dormers and had to completely remove the roof. The weather for this project has been spectacular and I'm happy to report that things are moving right along. The new roof should be "dried-in" by Monday.

I've also made an effort in recent years to become more "green" in both my work as a Realtor and in my everyday life. One of the amazing facts I've learned through my greening-up is that construction and demolition debris accounts for as much as 40% of material in landfills. A massive amount! In my particular case, the old roof had three layers of asphalt shingle on top of the original shaker shingle from the 1892 construction. Unfortunately, the wood rafters had bowed under the immense weight of all the shingles and could not be reused (although one of my neighbor's grabbed some for her fire pit).

The asphalt shingle, however, is a different story. Instead of trucking the three layers of asphalt shingle to the landfill, we've sent them to an asphalt shingle recycler to become the middle layer of asphalt on a Colorado highway near you! Heritage Shingle Recycler will grind them up and sell that mixture on to LaFarge Building Materials for use in asphalt roadways. The cost to send the shingle to the recycler was competitive with the cost of dumping at the landfill. The only difference to the roofer during the demolition was that they had to separate the asphalt shingle from the wood shaker shingles. Heritage cannot take any wood products as it interferes with the consistency with the asphalt mixture. If you are planning on reroofing anytime soon, have your contractor investigate this environmentally friendly, cost competitive alternative to the landfill.

For more info go to: www.heritage-enviro.com/sustainability/Shingle%20Recycling%20Brochure-CO.pdf