Boxley Materials Company is the first plant in Virginia, and the 11th in the country (out of more than 5,000 concrete plants), to gain the “Green Star” certification. Boxley officials and Roanoke City Manager Darlene Burcham raised the green flag at the Roanoke plant last week to celebrate its certification.
Doug Easter, Executive Director of Virginia Ready-Mixed Concrete Association, says the Green Star is a two-year certification that involves environmental stewardship.
“It’s impressive. It shows that they’re leaders not only in the industry, but also in sustainability and environmental stewardship … throughout the Commonwealth [and] the country. We look forward to them leading the Ready-Mixed industry through the Green Star program and look forward to working with them as well,” Easter said.
Larry Bullock, Boxley’s Vice President of Concrete, said they went through a four-month cycle to achieve the certification. “We had to do a base line inspection of our environmental practices. It’s based on continuous improvement of your environmental practices. We established goals and we completed one cycle.”
Among their achievements during the first cycle, Boxley reduced waste concrete by 20% by forming barrier blocks with that leftover material, saving 22 dump truck trips to a landfill, according to Bullock. Cyprus trees were planted to improve the aesthetics of the work site, and 100% of indoor lighting was replaced with high efficiency bulbs, using 75% less energy.
“At the end of four months [we] submitted our application and received the Green Star certification,” said Bullock, adding that Boxley plans to make continuous improvements.
Boxley has seven other operations in Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, and Bullock says they’re working on Green Star certification for those locations, as well.
Take a look at the not so “green” area around their quarry in Fieldale. An article similar to this ran in the Roanoke newspaper and contained inaccurate statements by Boxley about Fieldale which we have produced official documents to counter. The paper won’t acknowledge the information we have that counters which came straight from DEQ. This article reads like a press release which is to borrow a phrase Boxley uses is what they “would have you believe”. See the truth for yourself http://fieldale.wordpress.com. If they are “environmental stewards”, I’m the Pope.