Construction & Demolition Waste

Every week, CVRD Recycling Centre staff meet residents that have unknowingly handled asbestos material. Most of the asbestos has come from home renovations because asbestos is in the majority of homes in the Cowichan Valley. While asbestos is more regulated now, Worksafe BC aims to raise awareness for the risks associated with handling asbestos because it can still be present in newer homes. To get an idea of where asbestos could be in your home, click on the image below.

Asbestos Kills. Asbestos contains tiny fibres that travel deep into your lungs causing breathing problems in the short term and deadly cancer in the long term.

Renovations release asbestos into the air and put everyone at risk. You, your kids, your building contractor, the trucker who hauls away your construction waste and the worker at the waste facility who handles it are at risk.

Have a pro handle it safely. The only safe way to deal with asbestos is to have your house tested and then hire a reputable asbestos removal company to remove and dispose of it properly. The cost of these services is a small price to pay when buying or renovating a house to protect everyone you care about as well as those you may never meet.

• Asbestos hazards in renovations, restorations and demolition
• Asbestos in the body
• The history and impacts of asbestos

Wood is a common material found in and around your home. Recycle clean wood waste such as lumber, dimensional wood, wood offcuts, boards and stumps at CVRD Recycling Centres. These materials are recycled locally into wood chips to fuel local mills.

Wood waste accounts for a significant volume of landfilled construction and demolition waste and is one of the most difficult materials to recycle or reuse. In an effort to support a circular economy, painted wood is now turned into an engineered fuel to replace coal at the LaFarge Canada cement plant in Richmond, B.C.

Accepted materials include:

• Painted wood furniture
• Pallets
• Plywood
• Particleboard
• Pressure-treated wood
• Window frames, doors
• Dimensional lumber (e.g. fence posts)

Creosote-treated wood and metal hardware (e.g. door hinges and handles) are not accepted in the program.

Rubble or aggregate materials are commonly used in construction, landscaping and within households. While this can encompass a wide variety of materials, CVRD Recycling Centres accept:

• Asphalt
• Brick
• Concrete
• Concrete blocks
• Paving stones
• Gravel
• Rock

All rubble/aggregate materials must be free of metal, plastic, and wood to ensure that they can be recycled into new products.

When you recycle these materials such as concrete, it can be used to make new concrete or foundations material for roads and runways.

Time for a new roof and not sure what to do with the old roofing materials? Asphalt shingles are the most common roofing material for residential properties. These materials as well as tar and gravel roofing tiles are accepted at CVRD Recycling Centres for disposal.

Metal roofing materials including metal flashing should be sorted out and disposed of in the scrap metal bin at CVRD Recycling Centres.

Please be sure to remove styrofoam, membrane, or fibreglass roofing, as well as any wood, metal, concrete or wrapping/bunding paper when you drop off your roofing materials.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that was historically used in many building materials due to its strength, insulating properties, and resistance to heat, fire and chemicals. Asbestos fibres are very fine, and once airborne, can remain suspended for hours or even days. Asbestos is a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) and exposure can result in serious health problems such as lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma.

As long as the asbestos-containing materials remain in good condition and are not disturbed, there is very little risk of exposure to airborne asbestos fibre. The risk of exposure arises when the asbestos-containing materials are disturbed (e.g. during renovation) and the fibres become airborne. Airborne asbestos fibres are a risk to you, your kids, your building contractor, the trucker who hauls away your construction waste and the worker at the waste facility who handles it.

Two out of three Cowichan homes were built before 1990 when asbestos was often used in house construction. Asbestos is everywhere in these older homes: in the insulation, walls, ceilings, surface coatings, floorings, ducting, plumbing, wiring, light fixtures and more. Asbestos is commonly mixed with other materials, making it difficult to recognize. All pre-1990 building materials should therefore be considered suspect. Asbestos is commonly found in: loose insulation (e.g. vermiculite), roof gutters (asbestos cement), stucco, soffit boards, light fixtures, acoustic tiles, textured or coated walls and ceilings, siding and under sheeting, pipe insulation, insulation on electrical wires, furnace duct tape, boiler and furnace insulation, vinyl or linoleum flooring, drywall fillers and joint compound, roofing felt, shingles and tiles, etc.