Kalwall Helps Make Recycling Even Greener
How much can you learn about recycling from a Tin Man? If it's the one made from reclaimed clothes dryer barrels and standing outside the Summit County Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Breckenridge, Colorado, apparently quite a bit. This Tin Man is part of a miniature Emerald City of green-painted scrap metal – complete with a tornado and brick road of recycled yellow glass – who dispenses information about recycling to, among others, children on school field trips to the facility. But the building's commitment to the environment began long before its gigantic, double-ram baler started stuffing recycled materials into industry-standard 60" by 48" by 30" cubes and selling them to mills for an impressive $80 per ton.
Logic suggests that a materials recovery facility should lead by example in green building. However, the Summit County facility, completed in May 2006, is the first of its kind in the United States to do so. "The county could point to this project to show others how they can be more energy efficient in their buildings," says Matt Stais, of Matt Stais Architects. His firm and TCD Construction, Inc., both of Breckenridge, Colorado, joined forces to create the MRF. By the time it opened in August 2006, the $1.8 million, 11,560-square-foot operation had been recognized by the Green Building Initiative's Green Globes™ environmental assessment and rating system for commercial buildings.
Along with green efforts in facility operation, such as heat recovery and reuse, the building is constructed with steel beams made from recycled content; the floors were derived from recycled rubber and soda bottles. Kalwall's structural composite, translucent sandwich panels, installed as clerestories along virtually the entire south side of the structure, provide controlled, natural daylight to as much as 80% of primary interior spaces. (Kalwall Corp. is a green company in its own right; the Kalwall panel is a green product that also contributes to LEED® credits.) Daylight factors of 0.2 are achieved for work places requiring moderate daylighting and 0.5 for well-lit work areas.
Kalwall helps control brightness, glare and solar gain, which also saves energy costs due to diminished use of artificial lighting, while the thermally-broken panels' superior insulating properties control unnecessary heat gain or loss, thereby lowering HVAC system expenses. Translucent Kalwall also eliminates direct beam illumination to the outside at night, nicely complementing the facility's unobtrusive exterior lighting in preserving this mountain region's highly prized dark skies.
From every aspect, the Summit County Materials Recovery Facility is living up to its green aspirations. Green Globes praised it for strengths in the areas of heat recovery, the use of salvaged and recycled materials, and maximization of daylighting. The building is projected to be 30% more energy efficient than Energy Star Target Finder standards. (Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.) And the dream of being America's first green-built recycling center has been realized – with help from Kalwall.
Summit County Materials Recovery Facility
Architect: Matt Stais Architects
Kalwall Specifications:
U-Factor: 0.23 BTU/(hr/ft²/°F) = 1.31 W/m²K
Light Transmission: 30%
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient: 0.27
For more information, contact:
Bruce Keller
Kalwall Corporation 603-627-3861 (800-258-9777 N. America)
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