Demolition company to plead not guilty to contravention of asbestos regulations.

A demolition company accused of dumping rubble containing asbestos near Geraldton Grammar School has indicated it will plead not guilty to the charges brought against it.

The City of Geraldton-Greenough last month launched a prosecution against Softail Proprietary Limited, which trades under the name of Geraldton Earthmoving Contractors.

In the local magistrates court yesterday, lawyers for the company told the court a not guilty plea was likely to be entered but that could change after the evidence had been further assessed.

Read more here.

Demolition News has just launched its own Facebook fan page.

Demolition News has finally bitten the bullet and has today launched its very own Facebook fan page. In addition with allowing us to deliver the latest news and views from the global demolition sector right onto your Facebook page, this new fan page also gives you (and us) an opportunity to interact in a whole new way.

“Social media sites are an increasingly important contributor of traffic to sites like Demolition News. Indeed, Twitter is now second only to Google as the most important referrer of readers to our site,” says Demolition News founder Mark Anthony. “As a website that stands or falls by the number of relevant readers it can attract, Demolition News is constantly seeking out new ways to allow readers to access our information in a way that is beneficial to them.”

Mark Anthony reports that Demolition News has seen a slow but steady increase in traffic emanating from Facebook, and hopes that the new Fan Page will encourage an even greater level of crossover.

“For an increasing number of people, Facebook serves is their homepage, their link to friends and family, and the very hub of their online social activities so it is vital that we harness this social network and bring our information to Facebook users in a format that they know, understand and use on a daily basis,” Anthony concludes. “In addition to opening us up to a new, wider audience, the launch of our Facebook fan page will also allow fans to discuss matters that concern them and to interact and communicate around our news.”

To become a Demolition News Facebook fan, please just click here.

Owner of H&M Demolition sentenced to 13 months in prison for improperly handling asbestos.

“This is not a case about an evil man who was concerned only for himself,” his attorney, Thomas McCarthy, said. “Rather, it is a case about a good, albeit stubborn, man, who in the interest of trying to make his business a success and provide for his family, grew his business too fast, took on too much debt, got in over his head, and ultimately cut corners to try to stay afloat.”

The government said Tucker, who was sentenced today to 13 months in federal prison, took dangerous short cuts and exposed many, including his own workers, to asbestos in 2005. While working at a defunct lumber company’s kiln-drying building in Wyoming, he instructed workers to knock asbestos panels down with an excavator, despite federal regulations the panels be removed by hand, carefully lowered to the ground and kept wet until properly disposed of, authorities said.

Tons of contaminated debris were taken to a cement-recycling facility to avoid high costs of proper asbestos disposal, workers told investigators.

Read the full story here.

Equipment giant Caterpillar launches new mobile phone app.

It seems that rarely a day goes by when there’s not a new development in the mobile phone technology field. Demolition News recently launched its own web app, and there are several games available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

And now, construction equipment giant Caterpillar has brought its extensive product catalogue and dealer guide to the mobile world.

As this screen grab from my iPhone shows, the stripped down version of the Cat website works remarkably well, giving access to full product specifications in just a few clicks.

You can check it out by visiting m.cat.com on your mobile device.

Demolition News is now hosting a discussion community on The Construction Network.

We live in an age dominated by social media and networking systems. And even though we spend our every waking (and a few non-waking) hours in front of a computer screen, it is difficult to keep up with this fast-moving and ever-changing sector.

Here at Demolition News, where online contacts are our very lifeblood, we actively use networks such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook although recent developments in the latter have now cast serious doubts over our continued presence there.

However these networks are, by their very nature, general in nature and tend to attract children with a penchant for diggers and explosions as much as they attract true demolition professionals.

Which is precisely why we have signed up The Construction Network (tCn), an online community of like-minded construction professionals. In fact, we have gone one stage further, establishing a demolition community within tCn to allow users to discuss the latest developments in our industry, share news and views, and generally get-together online in a way that is impossible with the more general online sites.

If you’d like to join tCn and start adding your own comments, please click here. Alternatively, you might also like to check out the introductory video (below) hosted by England rugby legend, Jason Leonard.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Cherry operation turns asphalt shingles into roadbed materials.

Houston-based demolition and deconstruction specialist Cherry is now accepting “clean,” residential composition asphalt shingles for recycling at its recycling facility at 616 FM 521, Fresno. Cherry accepts used and manufacturer waste shingles at no charge, and plans to open additional shingle-recycling locations in Houston.

“By ‘clean,’ we mean that a load of shingles must not contain any wood, paper or other debris,” said Wesley Guidry, General Manager of Cherry’s Portable Recycling Division. “However, we will accept metal flashing for recycling. And, we will supply trash bags and dumpsters for disposal of paper and debris generated from shingle job sites—all at no charge.”

Guidry explained that Cherry will use special grinder machines to process the shingles into material for use in roadbeds and as dust suppressants for crushed concrete roads throughout Texas.

“Shingles are a valuable resource and shouldn’t be tossed into landfills,” says Bill Turley, executive director of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA). “Because this type of residential shingle is 100 percent recyclable, transforming it into usable roadbed material is the right thing to do for the environment.”

According to the CMRA, approximately 11 million tons of waste shingles are generated nationally each year. Of this total, the organization estimates that only 1-2 million tons are being recycled for further use, with the remainder ending up in landfills.

“Asphalt shingle recycling helps reduce construction and demolition waste, which is the goal of many states as well as the Environmental Protection Agency,” Guidry added. “In addition, shingle recycling contributes to sustainability in construction practices, as well as green building objectives.”

Cherry already recycles more than one million tons of concrete and 40,000 tons of steel each year, and is considered one of the biggest recyclers in the state of Texas.

Medical equipment repairs to continue while demolition takes place overhead.

Some staff from Adelaide’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital will have to keep working in a basement while demolition work is done above them. The Public Service Association (PSA) says 17 biomedical engineering staff who repair medical equipment – pacemakers, ventilators etc – will have work despite the noise, dust and vibration from demolition work on a four-storey building.

But CEO of the Central and Northern Adelaide Health Service Martin Turner says the distractions will not be as bad the PSA is suggesting.

He says noise will be minimised and should not affect the engineers’ ability to do their jobs.

“We’ve taken a lot of advice from our contractors, from SafeWork SA and from our own health and safety people and we are happy and satisfied that it’s appropriate for these workers to stay there during the demolition period,” he said.

Read the full story here.

Helicam provides unique view of demolition works.

OK, so the demolition of a timber-frame inn at the Whitefish Mountain Resort was never going to be too exciting; and the fact that the following footage was (apparently) shot on a Canon T2i/550D camera is of interest to only the photography and videography nerds among us.

But what sets this superb quality video aside from the run-of-the-mill demolition video is its unique perspective, with a large proportion of the footage being shot from the air via “helicam”. Enjoy.

Helicam Alpinglow Inn Demolition from Jeff Scholl on Vimeo.

Human remains found again at vacant Cleveland funeral home during demolition.

The cremated remains of five people were found this week during demolition of an abandoned East Side funeral home in Cleveland, Ohio where the unclaimed ashes of 43 people were found eight years ago.

Workers for A&D Contracting told police they found the ashes in tagged plastic bags on Monday morning, in the former M.L. Baldwin Funeral Chapel on Crawford Road at Wade Park Avenue.

The workers said the ashes were on a shelf that was empty when they left the site on Friday. Neighbors said the bags were left on the shelf by curiosity-seekers who discovered them while picking through the building on Sunday.

Police removed the bags from the site on Monday afternoon. Their disposition could not be determined on Tuesday. The coroner’s office was not involved, a spokesman said.

The previous discovery of cremated human remains came when the city’s building department was inspecting the condemned property for asbestos in June 2002.

Read the full story here.

Warehouse demolition leads to asbestos complaints from local residents.

An official complaint has been lodged over demolition work that locals say led to asbestos clouds spreading to a busy high street. Residents in Brentford, Middlesex, said the demolition of the warehouses in Commerce Road was inappropriate for the hazardous nature of the material involved.

Michael Bonin and Alistair Reid, who own a boat on the adjacent River Brent, said they were skeptical that enough had been done to contain the asbestos fibres which, as well as being carcinogenic, cause a variety of respiratory ailments.

They have lodged complaints with Hounslow Council and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Mr Reid, a construction industry veteran, said “If you want to demolish [asbestos cement roofing sheets] you have to take down the roof by hand and double bag it and dispose of it as hazardous waste. But they were just demolishing the building willy-nilly.”

Read more here.