About the Institute

Detailed information on the Institute’s general operating procedures and evaluation program can be found on the Resources page.

The Recycling Certification Institute oversees the national certification program to ensure integrity, transparency, accuracy and reliability in the recovery/recycling reports of participating C&D recycling facilities.  You can find a list of certified facilities and lines along with their recycling rates and Evaluation Reports on our Certified Facilities page. The Evaluation Reports detail the activities conducted in the evaluation of the certified C&D recycling facility and outline the findings of the evaluators.

The Institute uses a rigorous, open, and comprehensive process for developing its protocols. The Institute’s primary focus is on accurate recycling accounting to ensure that the recovery and recycling reports issued by certified facilities are real, verifiable, reproducible, and reasonable.

The Institute’s program rules and procedures, eligibility criteria, and quantification and evaluation protocols are designed to ensure that C&D recycling facilities certified by the Institute are:

▪ Real: Estimated recovery and recycling rates should not be an artifact of incomplete or inaccurate calculations. Methods for quantifying these rates should be conservative to avoid overstating a facility’s recovery and recycling rates

▪ Verifiable: Facility recovery/recycling data must have been verified by third party for the Institute to ensure the data are complete, accurate, and reliable.

▪ Reasonable: Recovery and recycling reports should be within the statistically expected range. In addition, the Institute strives to ensure that the facilities it certifies are not harmful. Facility activities should not cause or contribute to negative social, economic or environmental outcomes and ideally should result in benefits beyond simple recovery and recycling rates.

Finally, the Institute strives for practicality, by integrating rigorous requirements with time- and cost-minimizing steps for participating recycling facilities. Practicality involves alleviating potential barriers to C&D recycling implementation without compromising credibility.

The Institute develops protocols specifying eligibility criteria and detailing steps to estimate, monitor, and verify recovery and recycling rates achieved by specific recycling facilities. While each protocol contains guidance specific to individual facilities, Institute protocols also adhere to general project accounting principles.

The Institute strives to develop protocols that are “standardized” in nature, meaning they apply standardized factors and eligibility rules to the extent possible while maintaining sufficient rigor and accuracy. In addition, the form and content of Institute protocols follow established accounting principles and standards.