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‘We save everything’
King County DOT recycles down to the
last wood chip
 King
County is known as one of the greenest counties in the nation – not just
for its acres of trees, but also for its efforts to recycle and conserve
natural resources.
The King County Department of Transportation (KCDOT) goes to great
lengths to recycle materials that some would consider junk or garbage.
The recycling efforts reduce the amount of materials going into local
landfills, give many of the items a second life, and save taxpayers
money.
Sometimes, the department actually makes money by recycling materials.
Not only does recycling reduce disposal costs for all four divisions
within KCDOT, but there are also several items that the divisions get
paid to recycle.
“King County government has a great reputation for recycling, and I am
constantly amazed by the innovation among my own staff,” says KCDOT
Director Harold Taniguchi. “Our department recycles such a wide variety
of materials, and also does a wonderful job of purchasing recycled
products whenever possible.”
In fact, King County’s “green purchasing” program was recently
spotlighted in
Government Procurement magazine as one of the most successful
buy-recycled programs in the nation.
 But
in order to buy these green products, something needs to be recycled
first. In the transit division,
Metro
recycles more than 25 items on a regular basis. At the King County
International Airport, 60-year-old bricks were re-used in the remodeling
of the historic passenger terminal. The Roads Division has stockpiles of
materials waiting to be re-used in just the right project. And, the
Fleet Administration
Division coordinates all departmental efforts through its extensive
surplus program that features twice-a-year public auctions.
Due to their size, the transit and roads divisions have quite a few
opportunities to recycle. Metro re-uses a lot of material – particularly
when transit employees rebuild buses, which has been called the ultimate
recycling project. Since 2001, Metro has rebuilt the propulsion systems
in 100 trolley buses. Another project, to convert 59 of the old
diesel-electric tunnel buses into electric trolley buses is about 25
percent complete. Both projects have saved Metro millions of dollars
compared to the cost of purchasing brand-new buses.
The Roads Division re-uses both natural and man-made materials. A recent
example is the restoration of
Mileta Creek on Vashon Island. Over the summer, the Roads
Maintenance unit rebuilt the creek bed using trees that had blown down
during storms on the island, and rocks from an old bulkhead that was
removed from the beach at Quartermaster Harbor. Both the wood and the
rocks had been stockpiled at the Roads’ pit on Vashon for at least 10
years waiting for the right project to come along.
“That project cost us $0 in materials, because we save everything,” said
Jim Didricksen, an assistant supervisor in the maintenance section. “For
that project, we had close to 1,000 cubic yards of rock right on hand
for free.”
KCDOT has a system for deciding how any materials will be re-used. If it
has a commercial value, it is surplused through the Fleet Division and
sold at auction. Some materials have no real monetary value – like
broken bus shelter glass – but can be reused by artists and hobbyists.
Those items are often logged into the King County-sponsored
Industrial
Materials EXchange (IMEX) catalog for re-use by the public. And, in
some cases, KCDOT will have a closed-loop contract with a specific
vendor where a particular product like used motor oil is sold to the
vendor, who recycles it, and then resells it to the county at a
discounted price.
For an overview of some of the items recycled by KCDOT,
click here:
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