Making Green by Being Green

Lisa Billings/Chesterfield Observer Adam Bilger of Cedar Crest Builders works on a new home. These days, going "green" is not just a trendy lifestyle; it's a way to get ahead in the business world. Companies with environmentally friendly operations can gain an edge over their competitors when courting ecoconscious consumers. These local companies go the extra mile to keep their businesses in harmony with the natural world.

Cedar Crest Builders

Cedar Crest Builders is a local dealer of Lindal Cedar Homes that specializes in designing and building custom cedar houses. Owners Don and Linda Bilger keep the 5-year-old company eco-friendly by encouraging their clients to incorporate green aspects into their home designs. Natural ventilation to reduce cooling costs, energy efficient windows, and design plans that reduce the surface area of the building materials are just a few of the ways Cedar Crest minimizes the environmental impact of their houses.

Linda, a longtime participant in the green movement - "I used cloth diapers with my children 20 years ago," she says with a laugh - takes pride in the impact her company has on its clients.

Photo courtesy of Lot Scapes A Lot Scapes' machine, nicknamed "Frankenstein" because of its color, mulches a storm-damaged pine tree. "I'm glad that I can now be doing something as far as encouraging people who are building houses to get on board with the whole concept of being green," she says. "I think consumers want to go green. There's obviously tremendous interest."

At Linda's urging, Cedar Crest's day-to-day operations are kept green as well.

"We recycle our construction debris, and we recycle at the office," she explains. "We're doing things as a company to be environmentally responsible."

Although she admits that the initial costs of green building can be higher than building with non-green materials, Linda says over the course of time the money homeowners save by cutting down on energy costs more than makes up for the money spent on construction.

Lot Scapes

Candy Eubank founded Lot Scapes, a treeand brush-removal company, in June of 2007. The company offers a green alternative to traditional land-clearing techniques, which often involve burning the land or using machines that harm the soil. Lot Scapes' four machines convert the unwanted trees and brush into a layer of mulch, benefiting the soil by helping to prevent erosion.

Lisa Billings/Chesterfield Observer A truck dumps construction debris at Ace Waste. "What we do is called silviculture," Eubank explains. Silviculture is the practice of sustainable forestry. "When we mulch the trees, the mulch is left there on the ground. It acts as water filtration."

Lot Scapes' machines also do not damage roots underneath the soil like other land-clearing equipment often does. Customers who want plants removed in places protected by environmental laws, such as the Chesapeake Bay Act, come to Eubank so their land can be cleared legally. "We're definitely sought out because of the environmentally friendliness of the process," says Eubank. "Normally, to clear a piece of land you have to go through the process of getting permits for soil disturbance because you rip stuff out by the roots."

Ace Waste

Companies like Cedar Crest need look no further than Ace Waste for their construction debris recycling needs. Last January, Ace Waste founder Ken Mogul opened a construction and demolition debris-recycling plant in Chester. Carpet, wood, ceiling tile, drywall, concrete and metal all find their way to Ace Waste's recycling facility.

"Literally everything that comes out of construction or renovation or demolition is considered to be construction debris," Mogul explains. Most construction companies send their material waste to landfills, but Mogul says his method does not require any extra effort from construction companies. "On the front end, how we collect it is no different than how companies that are sending their debris to a landfill collect it."

The difference in procedure begins once the debris reaches the plant, where a conveyor using a magnet sorts and separates the materials. About 84 percent of what comes in is recycled.

Not only are Ace Waste's activities environmentally friendly by nature, but its facilities are green as well. Ace Waste's Chesterfield facility was designed in hopes of receiving a Gold certification under the Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. If the plant does earn Gold certification, the second-highest of the four levels of LEED certification, it will become the first recycling facility in the country to do so.

Mogul claims that despite the extra effort his company spends managing the waste, his company is no more expensive than the companies that put the waste into landfills.

"The materials we recycle generate revenue for us that a landfill wouldn't have," he explains. "It allows us to subsidize our current cost so we can be certainly competitive with, if not cheaper than, regular landfills."