Demolition & Recycling International magazine in conjunction with the European Demolition Association began a process to formally recognize world-wide achievements in the field of demolition and demolition technology. The result was the first annual Demolition Awards ceremony held at the Hotel Okura Amsterdam. on November 6. Firms from across Europe and the United States vied for awards in ten categories.
Costello Dismantling Co., Inc. who won the Environmental and Recycling Award for the demolition of the former Quaker Fabrics mill in Fall River. The former textile mill was comprised of almost 800,000 s/f of buildings dating to 1895. Current reuse is not compatible with the three-story, heavy timber framework and granite walls of the old textile mills; thereby requiring demolition of the buildings in order to recover the underlying land.
Valuable, salvageable building materials made well-planned removal and recovery techniques an essential component of the demolition plan, equipment selection, and worker training for the project. A fleet of excavators with shears and grapples dismantled and processed the building components into three major grades of material—salvage, recyclables, and landfill waste.
This mill complex was constructed of southern yellow pine timber framing and structural sub-flooring. The large timbers and floor decking boards are re-sawn to create flooring and millwork, as well as exposed structural members for new construction. Rough handling can shatter timbers which changes a valuable commodity to just more wood debris which carries a fee for disposal. Using high boom excavators with rotating grapples, the crew brought each timber to the ground individually to be graded and processed for shipment.
Steel building components were sheared to finished mill-ready grades of structural scrap, and bundle grades processed by a portable baler.
The granite walls of the building were screened and picked to create a landscaping product. Any residual stone was integrated with concrete and brick to be crushed onsite to create a specified product which will meet the future filling and grading requirements for the new site development. *