How Central Ohio Construction Is Cutting Waste For A More Sustainable Future

Central Ohio is packed with cranes right now, but what happens to all the materials when roads get milled and buildings get renovated?  Joe and Hanna dig into the part of construction most people never see: the waste stream, the hidden costs of landfilling, and the practical steps that make recycling real on busy job sites.

We’re also celebrating SWACO breaking ground on a new education center and administrative office building designed to be sustainability-forward, LEED-aligned, and net zero energy. From geothermal and solar to a mass timber structure and strong waste diversion goals, the project is built to “walk the walk” and to teach. The new space will welcome thousands of students and community members with interactive learning on composting, recycling, engineered landfills, the circular economy, and green jobs.

Ryan Smith from RAP Management joins us to explain why recycled asphalt product (RAP) is both a huge opportunity and a huge challenge. Ryan shares how European technology, brought from Switzerland, can increase recycled content while delivering high-quality asphalt, plus some jaw-dropping scale of diversion numbers!

Josh Lloyd from Turner Construction Company walks us through sustainable construction and demolition recycling in the real world: choosing haulers who recycle, keeping loads clean to avoid contamination, and using LEED as a common language for healthier materials and better procurement. He also shares an inspiring job-site food rescue effort that has already diverted over 13,000 pounds of food to families in need.

If you care about sustainable construction, recycled asphalt, LEED certification, or reducing construction waste in Central Ohio, you’ll get clear examples you can point to and ideas worth pushing.   Subscribe, share this with a builder or planner in your life, and leave us a review with your biggest question about cutting waste on job sites.

Transcript

Welcome And A Crane Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to Waste Ed. A waste and recycling podcast by Swaco.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome to our March episode of Waste Dead. Hannah have a little challenge for you. Uh, the next time you're driving around downtown or 270 or just about anywhere in central Ohio, I need you to count the number of cranes that you see.

Breaking Ground On SWACO’s New Center

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Well, that sounds fun, and I'm sure my kids will love that. I have no doubt that we'll see many cranes. Spring usually means warmer weather and wetter weather and more construction. And new this spring is Swaco's announcement that we've broken ground on a new education center and administrative office building.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah, pretty excited about that new project, except that we did have to move temporarily. But other than that, uh the new state-of-the-art education center is going to make learning about Central Ohio's waste stream so much more engaging, featuring new and enhanced and interactive exhibits and larger flexible classrooms designed to welcome thousands of school-aged children and community members each year. Well, as you know, Hannah, the renovated space and new building additions are being designed as sustainability forward facilities. That means the agency's vision will not only be lead certified, it will achieve net zero energy.

Net Zero Plans And Guests

SPEAKER_00 1:30

You know, Joe, so much of what we do at Swaco makes me proud. And this project is just another great example of how we prioritize walking the walk. Our mission is guiding every aspect of this project, from geothermal and solar to the mass timber structure and waste diversion. This project has it all. Our two guests know a lot about these things too. We say hello to Ryan Smith from Wrap Management and Josh Lloyd from Turner Construction Company. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Thank you for having us. Appreciate it being here. Ryan, why don't you start us off? Um, at Wrap Management, you have the first high-recycle asphalt mixing plant on this continent.

Turning Old Roads Into New Asphalt

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Tell us a little more about that. We are a sustainable pavement materials manufacturer. That's uh what wrap management does. Uh, our goal is to manage recycled asphalt product, which is the byproduct from reconstructing existing roads. We call that wrap. So asphalt is actually the most recycled product in in the world. However, the on the new asphalt that we produce and sell on average across the US, only 20% of it is recycled materials. So the issue here is that about 75% of the work that we complete is reconstruction of our existing infrastructure. We have grades to meet curb, gutter, uh, existing roadways, approaches that are all required to be matched in order for us to get appropriate drainage. And as a result, we have this obvious imbalance. If we're only putting 20% on average back and 75% approximately of the work we're doing is reconstruction, we're generating more of this waste than we can consume. So the goal of wrap management is to take that byproduct and turn it back into usable asphalt. And we've brought technology from Europe, Switzerland specifically, here to the US to help us uh complete that mission.

Job Site Recycling That Actually Works

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, they they do some different things over in Europe than we're doing here in the United States. I had an opportunity to be there a year ago, and they're they're a little ahead of us when it comes to diversion and recycling. So I get that. Um really cool stuff that you're doing at RAP. Uh, Josh, turning to you, tell us about Turner and a worldwide firm that's also helped Columbus grow to what we are today. Your construction footprint is all over town. And for building construction, what kinds of sustainable, recyclable, and reusable practices are happening at Turner Construction Company?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So Turner's been around since 1902, uh, more specifically here locally since 1965. So we've built iconic buildings such as the Road Tower, renovated the first lead certified building in in Ohio, the Lazarus uh center, along with all the arenas uh supporting facilities in uh the arena district. In regards to sustainable construction and recycling practices, the first and foremost is we work with haulers that recycling is one of their services. Uh, because not all waste haulers, especially for construction demolition waste, recycle materials. And it and in this particular market, it is a premium. In other parts of the country, it's it's standard practice out there here here, not not so much. So we make we make the effort to actually hire the the haulers that are recycling materials. The standard materials here are concrete, metals, wood, cardboard, and asphalt is what our other primary materials and some plastics, but that's still a hard one to come by.

LEED Standards And Real Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Yeah, we we see we've seen an increase in C and D at the landfill. There's so many people doing renovations, and I think ever since COVID, a lot of folks are staying at home, so now they have an opportunity to get their kitchens redone or bathrooms redone. So uh I I get uh the fact that both of you are probably dealing with this, especially with all the construction that's happening in Columbus. Um, it's hard to imagine, though, given your worldwide footprint, um, and given a country in Europe, for example, may have different sustainability goals than we do here, let's say, or in Asia. Josh, how do you handle that? How do you handle the different standards that different countries may have in terms of sustainability?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

So the majority of our work is in the United States, although some of our data center partnerships is bring us overseas, um, allowing us to expand in into Europe. And as you've kind of already dis discussed, uh, waste and circularity are de definitely much different overseas than they than they are here. So there's a lot of different global, uh, global complexities. So we try not to standardize things globally because each market is different.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, and and we hear a lot about lead certified buildings. LEED is leadership in energy and environmental design and is a global standard. How has this influenced the construction business uh these days with the LEED certification?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

LEED is a good com common ground, gets people with the gives people the same language uh so they know what they're what we're all talking about. But really for for contractors, it looks at material procurement, uh, looking at procuring materials that are healthier for the occupants, have less volatile organic compounds or VOCs. To recycle, it does come with some logistical challenges a lot of times, and again, cost, especially as we're trying to increase our diversion rate. We're looking at alternative markets.

Interactive Learning On Circular Economy

Europe’s Asphalt Tech And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I know we are moving towards a minimum of lead silver certification for our new education center, and we're looking at things like solar array and renovation versus building new, and all of those things kind of equate to uh more points for your lead certification. At that center, we're also leaning more into future programming on waste, and we're really excited to be able to bring interactive displays to the central Ohio community that are gonna highlight the circular economy and green jobs. Visitors are gonna be able to learn how landfills are engineered and built. Um, we'll have interactive displays on how to compost and recycle, right, and even a model kitchen where you'll kind of make decisions about purchasing behaviors and how to how to recycle and reduce waste right there. So, Ryan, let's talk a little bit more about wrap. And you mentioned um you've visited Switzerland and you've been to Europe and kind of brought back some innovations that you saw there. Are there other things that you've seen done in Europe that we should be doing here in central Ohio?

Where Removed Asphalt Used To Go

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Europe has fortunately developed some better technology for making asphalt than we're accustomed to here in the US. And I think a lot of that is probably necessity. Their infrastructure's older. So we're fortunate to be able to look at some of what they're doing and bring it here to the US. You know, it's so interesting that the US is often perceived to be the leader in technology. But when it comes to road construction, Europe is well ahead of us. Um, and maybe it's this cultural aspect. They're, I think, a bit more environmentally concerned as a culture, but a lot of it is probably driven by necessity. I mean, that's why I'm in this business. I mean, we had this difficulty managing the byproduct of reconstructing roads, and we had to figure out what to do with it. It was cost avoidance that really drove this. And just to highlight the problem, we're producing about 35 million tons of wrap every year that's going to these stockpiles that'll become landfills. That's enough to pave a one-lane road around the earth. This is like a real big problem that we need to find a solution to. And fortunately, in Europe, you know, they've built this plant that we were able to bring here to the US that can incorporate a lot more recycled material. And the recycled material offsets some of our cost, and we're investing that savings in infrastructure. This is a more sophisticated mousetrap that makes better asphalt as a result. So it's pretty cool to have an opportunity to network with a pretty powerful entity in Europe that has dominated the space across the rest of the world, except here for in the US. And we're fortunate to connect with them at the right time, and we're kind of their steward here in the US to bring the technology to this market.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

It's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

So paint me a picture.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Let's say I had to remove a giant parking lot or old mall site before wrap came along. What would happen to those materials in the good old days, as they would say?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

First off, the material has to be removed. So it's taken away from that existing construction site. And there's a huge cost associated with that, which is one of the biggest drivers that's incentivized us to try to find a home that's valuable for the material. But typically it goes back to an asphalt manufacturing facility, which is often located in a quarry where those aggregates were originally produced. It's stockpiled there and used when possible in new mix. And the result, material either stays there in a stockpile. And I'm sure if you take a little time to drive around Columbus and look around, you'll see some of them. And those stockpiles, unfortunately, at some period in time, if they're unable to be used, they get pushed back into the quarry. And that's kind of a downcycling utilization of this material, which I believe is not the correct solution. That's why we brought wrap management into existence is to show that we can take this byproduct, which has a cost associated with it, and we can use it to offset some of our new manufacturing cost and invest that offset in better technology, which allows us to make really high quality materials and do it in a the right way for the environment.

Saving Catered Food From Landfills

SPEAKER_02 10:38

We appreciate it, by the way. And I'm sure the uh municipalities that you know are paving roads all the time are using more and more of this recycled material, which you know helps them in the long run in terms of cost and getting that back into production as opposed to throwing it away in a landfill that uh we happen to have here in central Ohio. So we appreciate what you're doing out there at Rap. Um, Josh, I neglected to ask you, but I I've heard that at Turner Construction Company, there's a concerted effort to donate food on job sites. Can you tell us a little bit about that program or how you're handling that?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So that actually started by one of our administrative assistants on our one of our construction sites asking why we throw away so much food because some of our larger construction sites, we have up to a thousand trade partners there on a daily basis. And there's different events that we we cater for. So, with that question question asked, we got in contact with Sarah Gallagher on your team, and we started talking with her and got in touch with the Columbus Food Rescue and really drove a partnership between the the food rescue and a catering company called FUDA that we utilize on our a lot of our construction sites. FUDA found that as a great partnership that they actually brought that service to four other construction sites across central Ohio. And since that started in September, we've diverted 13 over 13,000 pounds of of food from the landfill that all went to you know families that wouldn't need that food.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Yeah, and anytime you call Sarah, we'll look out because she's coming and she's gonna figure out a solution.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I did on another green team with her, and yes, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

So I'm not a DIY guy, but let's just pretend I am. There's always some scrap, wood, carpet, and leftover drywall. Multiply that by all the construction sites out there, and we definitely have the potential to keep more of these scraps out of the landfill. Uh Josh, how's that happening in construction?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

A lot of it comes down to the logistics and how we can best handle that material. And a lot of it does too also come down to education with our our trade partners on site, where we have the event the space where we can separate the materials uh for their own bins to be properly recycled. We still get people that'll throw stuff in there that'll contaminate that load, which then ends up putting it directly to the landfill. So a lot of it does come down still to education and setting those goals with our trade partners.

Billion Pound Diversion Numbers Explained

SPEAKER_00 13:13

That's great. And and Ryan, I gotta shift gears here a little bit because I love the name of your company, RAP. Initially, when I searched it up, I spelled it W-R-A-P. And then I realized really quickly it's recycled asphalt product, R A P. And when I was on your website, I saw a couple of jaw-dropping statistics. In 2025, you diverted 471 million pounds of materials from landfills. That's awesome. But put that in perspective to the number of spare tires and aluminum cans and other materials that might make it easier for a listener to understand.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yeah, I mean, really, it's hard to quantify the volume of waste we displace. It's difficult to visualize. So uh just for reference, last year we recycled in comparison and volume uh 10.7 billion aluminum cans or 28.5 billion trash bags with a B. So with a B. So um, I mean, it's unthinkable. You can't even really quantify that in your head, but um, it's it's a pretty substantial volume, approximately 678 lane miles of road. So basically, we recycled a road from here to Jacksonville, Florida or Boston. Oh, wow to give you kind of a perspective of the waste displacement.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

With your new plant online diversion capacities, we'll hit 900 plus million pounds. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Yeah, I mean, with uh the both plants at capacity, when we get there, which we hope to achieve in the next couple of years, we have the ability of displacing almost a billion pounds per year. So again, 20.4 billion aluminum cans, um, 54.4 billion trash bags. This is just per year, right? And and imagine if we had capacity to put these plants in every city the size of Columbus or larger. Um, our displacement of waste per year could be astronomical. I really believe we're probably the smallest carbon footprint per revenue dollar organization in the Midwest and potentially could become one of the biggest that exists in the country. So we certainly have a big mission. So at capacity, um, we would displace enough material to pave our road from like here to Denver or Houston, so about 1,287 miles. So it's pretty cool. I mean, it's a big part of our mission at Rat Management. We like the fact that there's a correlation between supporting our families and the really, you know, tangible why behind our business, which is to displace waste and still provide our customer with a competitive price product that exceeds the performance of existing materials in our market.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

What an impact we could have.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Yeah, no kidding. Those are jaw job. Yeah, right.

Career Paths Into Sustainable Construction

SPEAKER_00 15:49

They really are. Well, I know everyone in this room um is passionate about sustainability. And I've got to ask for any of our listeners who are thinking about a career switch or even young people that might be tuning in, uh, tell us a little bit about your career pass. You both wound up in really unusual, unique um roles. Did you always know you were gonna wind up working in heavy duty construction?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

So I actually started my career as an architect.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

So um I was adjacent to the the construction industry. I was design, I was on the design side. So um always working with the with the contractors and started leaning towards sustainability with before knowing it was sustainability in college, uh, with just the work I did. And then I just had the opportunity with with Turner to come on for for this newer role for them uh to lead their sustainability efforts uh here locally and within eight state region.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Were you a Lego builder as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I was a Lego builder. That that and putting every master Lego builder. Uh not a master, still followed the instructions. So very very contractor-like. But I mean, I was also the person who put all the toys together at Christmas while my dad set off to the side.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yeah, that's I wish yeah, that'd be nice. I should have had you over to the house.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I have a daughter that does that for me.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

There you go.

Making Recycling Easy As The Default

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Ryan, how about you? How did you get into business? Well, uh, I'm an industrial manufacturing systems engineer by trade. So that was my formal education in school. Um and I always wanted to be an engineer in an entrepreneurial environment. I mean, I I knew that uh I had a great chance of success as an entrepreneur if I focused on engineering or the other industry that also succeeds in recession accounting. And so by default, I'm just good at industrial manufacturing and engineering. That was really how I uh found my way into this business. Um, I also had a family connection. Um, and so my father was in the business, he uh was in the construction side more than the manufacturing side, but that's what exposed me to recycling and it was just a marriage of an opportunity at the right place and right time to bring some technology here, um, some direct educational experience and an interest to be an entrepreneur. That was always what I wanted to do as a kid. It was just kind of my journey in life. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Well, it's really been a fascinating conversation today. Thank you both for joining us. As we start to wrap up, let's take a moment and look to the future. Where do you want your respective businesses and industries to be in five or 10 years when it comes to sustainable practices?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

I want it to be a standard practice, recycling being easy, easy, looking at the alternative materials that that we could use, such as you know, mass timber or or we're really focusing a lot on materials with higher recycled content or lower embodied carbon for our project. So that's where I really like to see is that we're this is the standard thought.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

I love that you said recycling needs to be easy because we hear that from residents all the time. I know we're talking about a big scale commercial recycling today, but we hear from residents all the time make recycling easier. So that's such an important point.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

So it's interesting. I actually uh gotta pull the uh AI into this. I feel like it's appropriate these days. But I asked Chat GPT, why should rap management's materials not be on this new Swaco project? And ironically, you know what it told me? It's no surprise. It's it's specifications, it's acceptance of change, right? It's reluctance to take risk in spite of potential failure and the cost associated with that. So for me, I think the future I'm focused on is education, because we have proven through statistics that we can deliver quality material and we have like 2.25 million tons of asphalt installed in the market here in Columbus that support that.

A Local Road You Can Visit

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Well, in the spirit of education, let me just ask before we let you go, if a listener wanted to uh take a drive and check out a road that there's wrap product on, is there a road here in central Ohio they could drive down and see your product at work?

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Uh that yes, I will take the opportunity to state that. So we did a huge project with the Ohio Department of Transportation last year. Uh it was a very uh important demo project for us at RAP Management. It was probably the most tested and scrutinized asphalt that's ever been delivered into the market. But State Route 56, so just west of Columbus, um, on 70, the westbound lane is Rap Management's material. Uh it was installed by um A and B Asphalt, which is a Jerkinson family company. And I'm really proud to say that we met every single specification for the project. Perfect. So State Route 56, just west of town. You can go see it. It's an important project to keep an eye on.

Final Thanks And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Well, hey, thank you, uh Ryan and Josh, for joining us. You can tell that you guys are very passionate about what your companies are doing in terms of sustainability and recycling, and we appreciate that. And this was, as Hannah said, a very fascinating conversation. And to our listeners, if you'd like to know more about what we do, visit our website anytime at suaco.org. We also want to hear from you. If you have ideas for future podcast episodes, connect with us on any of our social channels where you can always drop us an email. Until next time, this is Waste Ed, a waste and recycling podcast by Swaco.