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Recycling construction and demolition debris is a good idea going sour in the metro area.

Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Services is closed, the target of state efforts to revoke its permits and lawsuits against past and present owners because of unpaid loans.

Phoenix C & D Recycling risks losing its operating permit because of piles of debris at its facility at 4764 N.E. 22nd St.

Both companies have run afoul of Metro Waste Authority, a construction and demolition recycling proponent that, several years ago, considered building its own facility to process the material.

“Part of the problem for our facility and for (Environmental Reclamation’s) is Metro Waste’s inability to work with the processors,” said Tony Colosimo, CEO of Phoenix Recycling and Artistic Waste Services Inc.

Tom Hadden, Metro Waste’s executive director, said the issue is whether recyclers want to deliver the material in a form that can be used as daily cover, in which case it can be disposed of for free, or pay for it to be lumped with all the other solid waste that reduces landfill capacity. Daily cover can be anything from dirt to tarps that puts a six-inch cap on material delivered every day to the landfill.

Metro Waste gets a credit from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) if it meets goals to reduce the amount of material it takes into the landfill. That credit can amount to $500,000 a year. On the other hand, it charges customers a fee of $32.70 a ton for accepting solid waste.

The recyclers charge customers a fee to dispose of their material and would like, in turn, to have a place to deposit for free what they can’t sell in other markets.

At present, Metro Waste isn’t keen on using construction and demolition debris as daily cover unless it arrives in what it considers a harmless, soil-like consistency. Even then, it would prefer that recyclers find another use.

If not, and therein lies the rub for Colosimo, it will charge a tipping fee of $32.70 a ton to landfill the material as solid waste.

“It has nothing to do with sound science; it has to do with the money,” Colosimo said.

He believes that Phoenix and Environmental Reclamation helped Metro Waste reduce capacity at the landfill. Then, he said, Metro Waste turned its back on the companies, claiming that if the debris contained gypsum wallboard, it constituted an unacceptable material for use as daily cover.

Gypsum turns into hydrogen sulfide as it decomposes, creating the smell of rotten eggs at low levels and becoming toxic in high concentrations, particularly when kept in confined spaces.

Hadden said the landfill wants to be a good neighbor by controlling odors.

Metro Waste has rejected nearly 30,000 tons of potential daily cover from Environmental Reclamation, primarily because of concerns that it contains a large amount of wallboard.

And Metro Waste isn’t the only potential customer with concerns about the contents of material coming from Environmental Reclamation.

Cornie Brouwer, owner of an Oskaloosa composting business, accepted the company’s recycled debris when he considered it safe to use. At other times, he would reject it.

When Environmental Reclamation closed May 1, its material was up to Brouwer’s specs.

“We were still using it when they went out of business,” Brouwer said.

In addition, Phoenix agreed to stop hauling some of its demolition debris to a Madison County site that wanted to use it as fill material until concerns were raised about its makeup.

Metro Waste and other state-licensed landfills have some leeway to determine what constitutes acceptable daily cover, said Chad Stobbe of the DNR’s energy and waste management bureau.

For example, Colosimo has hauled his recycled material, wallboard and all, to a landfill in Newton, where it is used as daily cover.

Hadden points out that Phoenix and Environmental Reclamation wanted the best of all worlds by charging customers a fee to recycle construction and demolition debris, and then disposing of it for free.

In addition, Hadden said, using the debris as daily cover is no longer considered a benefit for the landfill.

The material uses up air space, which is crucial to the decomposition of landfill material.

“We really don’t want to fill the air space,” Hadden said.