Recycled Content as Weight Percentage

Hi Rob,

The supporting documentation upload for MR- Recycled Content states - Provide cut sheets for 10% /20% of the materials (by cost) to support pre- and post-consumer recycling content claims.

The language used may seem a little misleading. For the calculations for Recycled content credit, the cut sheets only need to show the recycled content per product by the percentage by weight. These documentations need to be uploaded for all the materials which are claiming the recycled content credit. (i.e. 10% / 20% materials by cost).

To calculate for the recycled content credit,

1. List down all products with recycled materials used in the project and sort into those with pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled content. Start with materials with the highest cost.

2. Check the percentage of recycled content in each of these products. This recycled content is determined by weight of the material assembly and is usually available in the product cut sheets from the supplier. OR for a composite material assembly eg. let us say we are using a interior wall form system. The panels are made of virgin materials, but the webs have pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled content. Determine the gross wall area. Calculate the % of panel and % of web. For the web further divide into % of pre-consumer content and % of post- consumer content (All these are determined by weight).

3. Now calculate, A = pre-consumer content% X material cost of the product

B = post- consumer content% X material cost of the product

Recycled content value for this item ($) = B + 0.5A

Let the Total Recycled Content Value of all Materials = C

4. Calculate Total Materials Cost, D. This can be calculated as 45% of total construction cost (hard costs in CSI Master Format Sections 03 to 10, 31 and 32 only), OR the actual material cost of the project (excluding labor and equipment can be calculated). Even though this is a little more effort, usually it is easier to reach 10% or 20% by this method, if you cannot claim by the other calculation.

5. The Percentage Recycled Content Value will be (Total Recycled Content Value / Total Materials Cost) X 100 = (C/D) X100, which should meet the requirement of the credit.