Construction Debris Disposal in Georgia: Rules and Routes

There is a paragraph in the City of Gainesville code that reads like a parts list for this business. Sec. 4-3-9 sets out what the city will not collect, and the list is: discarded building materials, dirt, broken concrete, brick, rock and debris; sinks, tubs, shower stalls and toilets; cabinets, doors, windows, roofing debris, lumber and siding; landscape timbers, crossties, carpet and floor coverings.

The city wrote our job description into its own ordinance. Everything on that list is what goes in a container, and knowing that early saves a contractor a week of finding out the hard way.

What the city will not take, and what that leaves

Sec. 4-3-9 goes further than the material list. It states that those items are the responsibility of contractors, tenants or property owners unless arranged on a special fee basis. It also excludes trees, bushes and vegetation generated by commercial tree trimmers, landscapers, grading contractors or building contractors, except under a special fee agreement. Between-tenant cleanup waste stays with the landlord, and post-eviction items must be removed within 24 hours or the city removes them at the owner's cost.

Then there is the hard exclusion list: rubber tires, wheels, automotive parts, acid, explosive material and flammable liquids, plus hazardous or biomedical waste requiring special handling under state rules.

In unincorporated Hall County the picture is starker. There is no residential curbside collection at all. Residents haul household waste to one of 12 compactor sites or to the landfill. The compactor sites take bagged household garbage in bags of 39 gallons or less, and they exclude commercial haulers. A tear-off, a gut remodel or a deck demolition cannot go there under any reading.

Sec. 4-3-10: the waste plan comes before the building permit

This is the clause that surprises general contractors, and it is one sentence long. The city shall not issue a building permit for a multifamily dwelling, condominium or commercial establishment until the public works director or a designee gives approval to the proposed plans for the storage and disposal of solid waste.

So on a commercial or multifamily project inside the city, the waste plan is a predecessor to the permit. Not a submittal during construction. Not a punch list item.

What belongs in that plan

• Where containers sit during construction and where the permanent enclosure goes.
• Truck access, turning room and overhead clearance to reach both.
• Screening and surfacing, since a container pad on clay is a maintenance question.
• The service pattern once the building is occupied, including recycling streams.
• Corrugated cardboard recovery, which Hall County code requires rather than encourages.

Raise it with the design team at schematic stage and it is routine. Raise it two weeks before the permit application and it is a delay.

Where construction and demolition debris legally goes

Georgia recognizes three landfill classes and the class decides the destination. Municipal solid waste is one. Construction and demolition is a separate class at Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 391-3-4-.07(4)(b). Inert waste is a third at 391-3-4-.07(4)(c), taking earth and earth-like products, concrete, cured asphalt, rock, brick, yard trimmings and land clearing debris.

The state's own definition of construction and demolition waste is waste building materials and rubble resulting from construction, remodeling, repair and demolition operations on pavements, houses, commercial buildings and other structures. That is a broad definition, and it is why a job site container is not simply a large trash can.

Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 391-3-4-.06, the permit-by-rule for collection and transportation, ties it together. Containers must be covered, substantially leakproof, durable and easily cleanable; contents must not fall, leak or spill in transit; and all waste must be deposited only at permitted facilities. There is no lawful shortcut on the last one.

Sorting pays on a construction site

Georgia bans yard trimmings from lined municipal solid waste landfills under O.C.G.A. § 12-8-40.2, effective 1 September 1996, with the definition at § 12-8-22(42). On a site that is clearing lot vegetation and framing at the same time, that means two streams, not one. Mix them and the whole load follows the most restricted item in it. Our guide to Georgia disposal and recycling rules works through the state bans in detail.

Concrete, brick and asphalt need their own container

The Hall County landfill rejects bulk concrete and asphalt. So a slab removal, a driveway tear-out or a failed retaining wall does not travel with the rest of the job.

Masonry is also the heaviest material on most sites, and wet red clay spoil is heavier still. Cecil clay runs 35 to 70 percent clay through the subsoil and it is usually damp in this county. That is why a 10 yard box is the right container for heavy material even when it looks undersized against the pile. A 10 yard of saturated spoil is at its weight limit long before it is at its volume limit.

Asbestos: Georgia EPD handles all of it

If your project touches an older building, this is the section to read twice. Georgia's asbestos program runs through Georgia EPD's Lead-Based Paint and Asbestos Program under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Chapter 391-3-14, Asbestos Removal and Encapsulation. One agency, one rule chapter, one phone number.

• Survey first. An agent of a Georgia licensed abatement contractor must inspect for regulated asbestos containing material before renovation or demolition activity.
• Ten working days' notice. Notification runs ten working days, Monday through Friday, before the project starts, and the postmark date counts as the first day of the period.
• Demolition triggers it broadly. Notification is required for all demolition projects, with an exception only for residential structures of four or fewer dwelling units that are not part of a larger project.
• Renovation trigger. Ten or more continuous linear feet, or ten or more square feet, of asbestos containing material.
• Fee. Ten cents per square foot plus ten cents per linear foot of friable material, minimum 25 dollars, capped at 50 dollars for residential and small projects and 1,000 dollars for other projects, as published.
• Duty officer. (404) 363-7026, weekdays.

The scheduling consequence is the important one. Ten working days is two calendar weeks. A demolition that has not filed notice cannot lawfully start on the date the container was booked for, so file the notification before you book anything. Hall County's own code definition of construction and demolition waste expressly includes asbestos containing waste, which is a reminder that this material is regulated at every level.

Lead paint: Georgia is EPA-authorized, so you certify with EPD

This one trips up contractors who learned the rule in another state. Georgia is an EPA-authorized state for the Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting program. It became the twelfth authorized state, effective 5 July 2011, with Georgia's own rules taking effect on 9 December 2010. The governing regulation is Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Chapter 391-3-24 together with the federal 40 C.F.R. Part 745.

Certification is obtained from Georgia EPD, not from EPA. And Georgia's program is stricter than the federal rule in several respects: a stricter definition of child-occupied facility, mandatory cleaning of window troughs, and pre-renovation notice that must go to owners and managers of child-occupied facilities rather than merely to an adult representative.

The trigger is the familiar one, renovation, repair and painting that disturbs lead-based paint in housing and child-occupied facilities built before 1978. Gainesville has a substantial older housing stock to which that applies: the Green Street houses that went up from around 1880, the Chicopee and New Holland mill villages of the 1920s and 1930s, and the downtown rebuilt after 1936. Background on the federal side is published by the EPA, but for a Georgia job the certification desk is Georgia EPD.

Which permitting office handles your address

Hall County has nine municipalities, and only four sit wholly inside the county, so the jurisdiction question is not academic here. The county states its own rule plainly: Hall County Building Inspections handles permits for unincorporated Hall County only, and properties inside a municipality apply through that municipality's permitting department.

For a Gainesville city address, building permits and demolition permits come from the Building Inspection division of the city's Community and Economic Development Department, on Henry Ward Way. That division enforces the International Building Code as adopted and amended by the State of Georgia, along with erosion and sedimentation controls. For an unincorporated address, it is Hall County Building Inspections on Browns Bridge Road.

Get that right before you order anything. A demolition permit from the wrong office is not a permit, and a container sitting in a driveway waiting on paperwork is money doing nothing. When in doubt, check the address against our service areas or call and we will tell you which side of the line you are on.

Job site housekeeping and the load itself

Two operational rules come straight out of the state and city codes rather than from us.

First, load below the rails. Georgia's permit-by-rule conditions require that contents not fall, leak or spill in transit, and a heaped container cannot be tarped. A box loaded above the rails is a box that has to be pulled down by hand before it moves, which costs a crew half a morning.

Second, keep the clay off the road. City Code Sec. 4-4-2(b) prohibits allowing dirt, silt, sediment or debris to be tracked or deposited into a city street from a parcel within the city. On a Piedmont site with truck traffic, that means a stone approach, mats under the container rails, and somebody scraping the apron before the mud sets. Erosion, not swelling, is the regulated soil concern in this part of Georgia, and it is enforced.

Sequencing a Gainesville demolition or remodel

The order of operations matters more than any single rule.

1. Historic district review, if applicable. A certificate of appropriateness covers demolition and relocation in a city overlay district.
2. Asbestos survey and, where triggered, the ten working day EPD notification.
3. Demolition or building permit from the correct office. City addresses go through the city; unincorporated addresses go through Hall County Building Inspections.
4. On multifamily, condominium or commercial work, the Sec. 4-3-10 solid waste plan approval before the building permit issues.
5. Georgia 811 locate request if anything is being dug, two to eight business days out.
6. Container delivery, placed five feet clear of combustible walls, openings and eave lines under 2024 IFC Section 304.3.4.

Do those in order and the job runs. Do them out of order and every step waits on the one you skipped.

We handle the last item and we can talk through the rest from experience. See construction dumpster rental and demolition debris for the container side, or call the yard at (470) 691-8287 and describe the building.