What if You Planned Ahead? Using Sustainability Principles to Guide Your New Scrapyard Design - A Case Study of Modesto's "Oasis of Sustainability" Royal Recycling"

After two years of detailed and thoughtful planning, design, and construction, Royal Recycling, California’s first “green” metals recycling center, opened its flagship location in 2011. Royal Recycling is not just another junkyard, it is an innovative community metals recycling center, beautifully landscaped, and the first known to follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) elements and pursue LEED certification.

This talk will present the sustainable design and management concepts used to address stakeholders’ concerns and the principle of Avoiding the Pitfalls of Stormwater Discharge.  Through creative management of stormwater and hazardous waste management, substantial cost savings are real, allowing Royal Recycling to offer the highest prices for scrap metal purchases.

Royal Recycling incorporates features that the modern recycler and regulating agencies appreciate, for instance: zero stormwater discharge, a white roof coating with high solar reflectivity index on the recycled metal building, skylights to illuminate interior spaces, planned solar power for the building and process equipment, rainwater harvesting to irrigate California native and drought-tolerant landscaping, mature trees preserved for wildlife habitat and their contribution to carbon sequestration, and an innovative “living wall” made of recycled Styrofoam and porous cement with plantings to eventually insulate the entire west wall.

Royal Recycling is a purposeful member of the community. Royal Recycling offers an attractive pavilion for customers’ safety and repose, a forum for community events, and non-metallic, charitable recycling. The community is invited to propose charities which Royal Recycling supports on a quarterly basis.