By: Deborah Johnson Wood
In July of 2007, six partners founded Grand Rapids-based Crutchall Resource Recycling LLC (CCR) with the goal to provide the Michigan homeowners, roofers and dumpster companies with means to recycle and reuse tons of a particular petroleum-based product: residential asphalt roof shingles.
In September, the MDEQ approved the company’s request to remove residential asphalt roof shingles from the waste stream. The decision paves the way for CCR to become West Michigan’s first recycler certified to recycle the shingles for vendors who reuse the ground up shingles in hot mix used for road and pavement repair.
In May, CRR ground its first shingles—a recycling service in existence a dozen years in some 15 other states—and since then the company’s Grand Rapids and Lansing sites have recycled 30,000 tons.
“We estimate there’s about 70,000 tons of residential shingles that could end up in the landfills every year just in Kent County,” says Ellie Kane, a company partner. “We think right now we’re capturing 15 to 20 percent of it.”
Roofers, homeowners and dumpster companies bring the shingles to the recycle yard at 631 Chestnut St. SW where CCR tests each load for asbestos before grinding it for reuse. (To-date, CCR has never found any asbestos.)
Thus far, the company’s investment totals approximately $2 million to launch recycle sites in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Kalamazoo with plans to invest another $1 million in future sites in Flint and Southeast Michigan.
“It’s easy for our local consumer and ends up costing them less than disposing of the shingles in the landfill,” Kane adds, “We provide a less expensive product to the hot mix customer and we’re creating jobs.”
Source: Ellie Kane, Crutchall Resource Recycling LLC
Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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