Same as credit MR 4.1, except for percentage of total construction material from recycled items (10% in Materials and Resources 4.1)
20% of Total Construction Material from Recycled Items (post consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
Intention:
- Reduce impact from extraction and processing of virgin materials
- Increase use of recycled content in building
Implementation:
There are two types of recycled material:
- Post Consumer: material already been used and will be reused for another application.
- examples: plastic, paper, glass, and metal
- Pre-Consumer: material form the manufacturer that has not been used and will NOT be reused
- examples: wheat straw, sawdust, fly ash
- To clarify, we must use materials with recycled content such that “the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer content constitutes at least 20% (10% for MR 4.1) BASED ON COST, of the total value of the materials in the project.
- Total Materials Cost —> 2 options
- 45% construction cost (total construction cost of entire project multiplied by 0.45) OR
- actual materials cost
- benefit of using actual material cost rather than default 45% is that projects with < 45% actual materials cost would find it easier to achieve the 20% and 20% (MR 4.1) thresholds since equation of recycled content = total recycled content cost divided by total material cost.
- For Calculating Assembly Recycled Content (composed of multiple materials)
- consider percents by weight of post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled content.
- Total Materials Cost —> 2 options
- Exclude:
- MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing)
- Elevator equipment
- Includes:
- Anything but MEP & elevator equipment that is recycled.
- Furniture can be used, only if used consistently in credits MR 3.1 through MR 7.
- Steel products with no information available, assume recycled content to be 25% post consumer.
Codes/Standards Applied:
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14021 – 1999
- They define what recycled material is
Extra Credit:
- 30% (instead of 20% or 10% as in MR4.1) total construction material from recycled items
Submittal Phase:
- Construction (tip: all Materials and Resources credits are submitted in the construction phase except MR P1)
Links from Reference Guide:
- Recycled Content Product Directory
- GreenSpec – Building Green, Inc.
- Guide to Resource-Efficient Building Elements
- Oikos
- U.S.EPA Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines Program
Other Materials & Resources Credits
- MR P1 – Storage and Collection of Recyclables (prerequisite)
- MR 1.1 – Building Reuse, Maintain 75% of Existing Walls, Floors, & Roof
- MR 1.2 – Building Reuse, Maintain 95% of Existing Walls, Floors & Roof
- MR 1.3 – Building Reuse, Maintain 50% of Interior Non-Structural Elements
- MR 2.1 – Construction Waste Management, Divert 50% from Disposal
- MR 2.2 – Construction Waste Management, Divert 75% from Disposal
- MR 3.1 – Materials Reuse, 5%
- MR 3.2 – Materials Reuse, 10%
- MR 4.1 – Recycled Content, 10% (post-consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
- MR 4.2- Recycled Content, 20% (post-consumer + 1/2 pre-consumer)
- MR 5.1 – Regional Materials, 10% Extracted, Processed & Manufactured Regionally
- MR 5.2 – Regional Materials, 20% Extracted, Processed & Manufactured Regionally
- MR 6 – Rapidly Renewable Materials
- MR 7 – Certified Wood
20 Comments On This Post
canadian version 1.0
4.1 – 7.5%
4.2 – 15 %
does this mean extra credit would be 30% ?
can someone explains post-consumer + 1/2 post-consumer ?
thanks.
Lilian,
The correct equation is post consumer + 1/2 preconsumer. I’m assuming you know what each of those means, but the equation pretty much means that any pre-consumer recycled material will only be counted half the actual amount toward this credit. Post consumer recycled material will count in full.
Thanks Pat for correcting 1/2 pre-consumer and the explanation. There’s something about this blog that I’m finding alot easier to understanding what I have been studying…:-) thanks again.
Glad to hear =) Tell your friends =P
Please ask more questions if you have any! I, or others are always willing to help. When are you planning on taking your exam?
I plan to take in April…I’ve a study group started since Feb and we are into intro, application, cirs, etc. Slow but steady and this blog given to me 2 days ago from a study peer, is filling me alot more confidence. I feel alot ‘safer’ to post questions here and the best of it is getting spontaneous answer without judgement…..i think we are the only study group here studying the newer version ( eq to us current version with slight variations) … 🙂
Awesome! April is coming quickly, but it sounds like you are on schedule to do well with the test. Good luck and keep us posted.
=)
I was recently hired at a steel fabrication company, and recently a few of our general contractors have requested we partake in the LEEDS certification program. I have sort of been put in charge of handling it, but I am quite new to all of this. Say for instance that one of the companies that supplies us steel, has 100% recycled content in their steel, 50% is post-consumer, and 50% is pre-consumer, the number that would be put down in the LEEDS form would be 75% correct?
For material costs… what would this include for steel? We have the actual steel we buy, erection of the steel, the painting/galvanizing, the manufacturing, & markups to the customer. What aspects of that would be included in the cost? Would it be what we sold it to them for… minus erection, painting/galvanizing, and manufacturing?
The steel mills we buy from give us their post & pre consumer recycled content… but they usually say something like 70-85%, should I just take the low number, or the in-between of the two? Also there are companies that are in locations such as China, that some of our pipe suppliers buy from, and they do not supply numbers for us to use, what do we do there?
Thanks ahead of time!
Matt,
Honestly, your question is a good question, and it’s too good for me. I don’t believe I have the experience or qualifications to give you information that could possibly be misleading for you and your design team. I will however ask that you please visit Joel’s website at
http://reallifeleed.blogspot.com/
He’s a great help and he works on many LEED projects himself and his goal is to give everyone useful information in passing real LEED projects. If you look in the reference guide, however, I know it says something about steel specifically, but unfortunately I don’t have a guide right in front of me at the moment.
I apologize I can’t be of further assistance to you. If you get an answer, please let us all know!!! Thanks and good luck!
there has question,
Is 30% recyle item as same as (30%postconsumer + 15% preconsumer)?
Sit,
I didn’t really understand your question, but I think you are asking if you have a 30% post-consumer + 15 pre-consumer content, is that the same as having a total of 30% total, per LEED requirements. If that is your question, then no. The formula is (post + 1/2 pre) for LEED. With the numbers you gave, the correct percentage should be 37.5% total.
I am a little unclear on how to find the recycled content information. Is it something that we have to request from manufacturer (or they list on the specs for a product)? Or is there a good resource on finding out what materials have what % and type of recycled content?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Ella
Hi Perellush,
Good question. Although it’s not really something you need to know for the exam, the recycled content of a material can usually always be found from the manufacturer, or even on the product itself at times.
I’m sure there are resources out there too that hae general percentages, but to get an exact one from an exact manufacturer, you’ll have to get the information from the manufacturer themselves.
Thank you, Pat.
You are working on a LEED submittal, and considering materials for compliance
with MR Credit 4, Recycled Content, including copper piping with 95% postconsumer
recycled content, ductwork with 25% pre-consumer recycled content, and metal aluminum flashing with 5% pre-consumer recycled content. Which materials
are eligible to contribute to the credit? (Choose one)
A) ___ All of them
B) ___ None of them
C) ___ Only the ductwork and piping
D) ___ Only the flashing
E) ___ Only the piping
Should not the answer be A? I mean cant we add the cost of each separetley to find their contribution towards total project cost? The answer is “D”
The piping and ductwork would be considered part of MEP material, which cannot be counted. The only credit in MR that those count for is MRc2.
Thank you Lisa.
Sample ques:
Which THREE of the following credits require standard performance calculations?
A.EA Credit 1, Optimize Energy Performance
B.WE Credits 3.1 & 3.2, Water Use Reduction
C.MR Credits 4.1 & 4.2, Recycled Content
D.MR Credit 6, Rapidly Renewable Materials
Answer is ABC,
I understand A & B are clear answers but why C?
Thanks in advance.
mamz, I suspect the answer key for the question is in error. Performance calculation has nothing to do with the requirements specified in MRc4.1 & MRc4.2. Where did the question come from?
Dear Pat:
I don’t quite understand your Pre-consumer definition:
# Pre-Consumer: material form the manufacturer that has not been used and will NOT be reused
* examples: wheat straw, sawdust, fly ash
since these materials ARE and should be reclaimed within the same process that generated them…? Does this not mean they will be reused and therefore included in the 1/2 pre-consumer calculation???
Could you please clarify for me?
Thanks,
E
although the question is posted in back in march … c MRc4.1 needs standard performance calculation for the Supplementary Cementing Materials.