Sonoma County supplier looks to eco-friendly concrete

<p>[BY_STAFF_00]<IP0><EL1>By<EN>MATTVILLANO<QA0></p><p><IP0><EL1.5><CJ3><HRcutoff,36,0.3,0,0><QA0></p><p><IP0><EL-6><CF103><CP6.1><CW100>FORTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT<EL5></p><p><CW-30>There's more than one way to pave patios and driveways in the New Year, and one of those options is markedly greener than the rest: CleanCrete, formerly known as Ekocrete.</p><p></CW>The ready-mix concrete is comprised of up to 85 percent recycled materials, and Cazadero-based Austin Creek Materials is the only Sonoma County materials supplier to provide and sell the product.</p><p>The company, with offices in Santa Rosa, has been selling the stuff since last January.</p><p>“Ekocrete is just as strong and reliable as regular concrete, only it's almost entirely made of recycled stuff,” said General Manager Steve Canelis. “It's perfect for the home or business owner who wants concrete but also wants to keep the environment in mind.”</p><p>What makes this concrete different? Typical concrete is comprised of 75 percent sand and gravel-aggregate that, in most cases, is plucked from the earth at a quarry. Ekocrete, however, replaces all of this material with recycled concrete that has been pulverized into tiny pieces that resemble sand and gravel.</p><p><CW-10>The product also substitutes fly ash from coal mills for cement powder, re-using waste instead of creating something new.</p><p></CW>It can be colored, stained, stamped and acid etched, just like any other concrete.</p><p><CW-30>Ekocrete is the brainchild of Jim Glessner, president of Clean Concrete Technologies in Palo Alto. The company was named Ekocrete until this summer, when it changed its name (in some circles, the product itself is now known as CleanCrete).</p><p></CW>Glessner says he developed the product earlier this decade with the sole purpose of sustainability.</p><p>“Previous so-called ‘green' concretes made modest changes to existing concrete designs,” he said earlier this year. “Ekocrete was designed from the ground up to use no mined aggregate and significantly less cement.”</p><p>While Ekocrete can be used in both residential and commercial products, most customers are residential. Austin Creek's customer base is no exception: Canelis says the materials supplier just started on a 500-yard installation at a custom home in west county.</p><p>Still, some contractors balk at the price of this eco-friendly product. Generally speaking, one cubic yard of Ekocrete costs 10 percent to 12 percent more than the equivalent amount of traditional concrete. For Thomas Trent, president of Tom Trent Builders in Duncans Mills, this premium is hard to sell, especially given the current economic climate.</p><p><CW-20>“The construction and remodeling industry is in the worst recession in almost 30 years,” Trent wrote in an e-mail. “In that context, only a very few customers who are both committed to green ideas and have the financing to make those sometimes more expensive choices will go for them.”</p><p>Canelis, the general manager at Austin Creek, says his customers have not balked at Ekocrete prices — at least not to him.</p><p></CW>He notes that when customers opt for Ekocrete, they are willing to pay a premium to support sustainability, and adds that recycled concrete makes construction projects eligible for points from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.</p><p>“Down the road, if you're selling a home with LEED points, the property is worth that much more,” Canelis offers. “An investment in this type of product isn't something that's going to pay you dividends right away.”</p><p>At this point, the market for Ekocrete is still growing.</p><p>An overwhelming number of municipal governments do not allow for recycled concrete in their specifications and criteria for bidding new jobs, and Canelis says he and Glessner likely will lobby Caltrans in 2010 to change statewide rules.</p><p><CW-20>Karina Chilcott, education coordinator with the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, declined to comment specifically on Ekocrete, but noted that a number of county quarries take old concrete chunks to crush for use in road base, in case residents are interested in supporting recycling efforts without embarking on new projects of their own.</p><p></CW><NO1></p><p>For more information about these county efforts, visit www.recyclenow.org or call 707/565-3375. For more information about Ekocrete, visit www.cleanconcrete.com.</p>