Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Denver School District Recycles Old Ceilings

  • 02/01/15
Recycling Old Ceilings

Denver Public Schools found a way to promote sustainability and benefit their own construction projects with Armstong’s Recycling Program.

With the adoption of its Sustainability Management Plan, Denver Public Schools (DPS) is challenging students, teachers, staff, and parents to practice an “ethic of sustainability” to help reduce the impact its 185 schools have on the environment.

A major focus area of the plan calls for measurable improvements in landfill diversion rates and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from solid waste.

When renovations began on a 14-story office building DPS was converting to a vertical campus in downtown Denver, school officials met with the contractor to set sustainability goals for the project. “Recycling and repurposing of the materials that came out of the building was probably the number one item on that sustainability list,” explains DPS Construction Project Manager Katheryn Zeeb.

A large part of the construction waste consisted of old ceiling tiles that had been removed from the building during renovation. The contractor recommended that DPS recycle the old ceiling tiles through the Armstrong Ceiling Recycling Program.

The program enables building owners to ship discarded ceiling tiles from demolition and renovation projects to the nearest Armstrong plant as an alternative to landfill disposal. The discarded tiles are then used to manufacture new ceiling tiles.

Through its participation in the program, DPS eventually recycled over 131,000 square feet of used ceiling tiles, diverting nearly 67 tons of construction waste from landfills.

“The recycling program has proven to be advantageous from so many different levels – from savings on container costs and landfill fees to stewardship of resources for future generations,” says DPS Construction Services Director James Allen. “It’s been a good experience. Now that we’ve done it once, we’ll continue to do it. We’re a school district and we are life-long learners.”

www.armstrong.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Florida District Completes Construction on New Leadership Institute

    Pinellas County Schools near Tampa, Fla., recently announced that construction is complete on the new Dr. Michael A. Grego Leadership Institute, according to a news release. The district partnered with Rowe Architects for the project’s design and with Skanska for construction services.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Architectural Power for the Modern Campus Landscape

    For generations, an outdoor classroom only required a textbook and a patch of grass. Today, not only has the laptop replaced the printed pages, the rise of agile learning has turned campuses into study halls with students listening to lectures and researching topics from quads, gardens, and plazas. The challenge for architects and facility managers is to provide connectivity without cluttering the landscape with visual eyesores or creating safety hazards with extension cords.

  • Moline-Coal Valley School District to Consolidate Two Schools into New Facility

    The Moline-Coal Valley School District in Moline, Ill., recently broke ground on a new elementary school that will consolidate the students and staff from two existing schools, according to local news. Robert Ontiveros Elementary School will serve as the new home for Lincoln-Irving Elementary School and Willard Elementary School.