King County's LinkUp Program to focus on key recyclable materials

More than half of the materials that go to the Cedar Hills landfill each year are readily recyclable, and King County’s LinkUp program wants to find new markets for these valuable resources.

Since 2000, LinkUp has provided assistance to selected manufacturers to use more recycled materials in the products they make. Starting this year, LinkUp will concentrate on projects to reduce market barriers for key recyclable materials by facilitating an interactive community of businesses, public agencies and other organizations.

Under the new structure, the program will choose up to four priority materials each year for attention. The materials for 2007 are asphalt shingles, glass bottles, gypsum wallboard and urban wood, which is primarily from construction and demolition activities.

“There is great potential to increase recycling of these materials,” said LinkUp Program Manager Kris Beatty.

“Expanding existing markets and finding new ones for these materials will help keep them from ending up in the landfill.”
In a market study conducted last year, potentially recyclable materials generated in King County (outside Seattle) were found to have an estimated value of more than $40 million.

This year’s materials were chosen based on the potential for increased recycling in King County:

• Glass bottles - approximately 40,000 tons of glass bottles are generated in King County (outside Seattle), and only slightly more than half of it is recycled.
• Asphalt shingles - an estimated 17,000 tons of asphalt shingle waste is generated by construction and demolition activities in King County (outside Seattle) each year; less than 1,000 tons are currently recycled.
• Gypsum wallboard - construction and demolition activities in King County (outside Seattle) generated an estimated 31,000 tons of gypsum wallboard waste in 2005, with only about 6,000 tons being recycled.
• Urban wood - 94,000 tons of recyclable urban wood is disposed each year in King County (outside Seattle).

LinkUp assists the marketplace in a number of ways, including locating reliable suppliers and evaluating technologies and markets for recycled materials, assisting with material and product testing and providing marketing and communications assistance.

King County has launched a redesigned Web site, www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/linkup/, reflecting the changes to LinkUp, which will serve as a resource for the business recycling community.

“The newly designed LinkUp Web site features a page for each material that includes information on potential markets, resources and links to current projects,” Beatty said. “We have also established a LinkUp blog to encourage discussion and information sharing around each material.”

More information is available by visiting the LinkUp Web site, or by contacting Beatty at kris.beatty@kingcounty.gov, or 206-296-3740.