Green
MR Credit 4 - Recycled Content
Materials & Resources Credit 4: Recycled Content intends to increase demand for building products that incorporate recycled content materials, therefore reducing impacts resulting from extraction and processing of new virgin materials. As discussed and demonstrated below, steel building products contribute positively toward earning points under Credit 4.1 and Credit 4.2. The following is required by LEED Version 2.2:
Credit 4.1 (1 point) "Use materials with recycled content such that the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer content constitutes at least 10% of the total value of the materials in the project."
Credit 4.2 (1 point) "Use materials with recycled content such that the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer content constitutes at least 20% of the total value of the materials in the project."
The value of the recycled content portion of a material or furnishing shall be determined by dividing the weight of recycled content in the item by the total weight of all material in the item, then multiplying the resulting percentage by the total value of the item.” Since steel (the material) and steel (the building product) are the same, the value of the steel building product is directly multiplied by steel’s recycled content, or:
Steel Recycled Content Value = (Value of Steel Product) x (Post-Consumer % + ½ Pre-Consumer %)
The formula above calculates the post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled content percentages for steel building products. These percentages and values are easily entered into the LEED Letter Template spreadsheet for calculation. The following shows the computation and results for FreeAxez recycled content:
FreeAxez 40 & FreeAxez 70 All Steel Low-Profile Access Floor Recycled Content Value:
Steel Recycled Content Value = ($10,000) x (35% + ½ 10%) = ($10,000) x (40%) = $4,000 $4000/$10,000 = 40% (Exceeds 10% and 20% goals) |