enlarge Photos by Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

This pile of concrete blocks from the site of the demolition of the old Baxter Elementary School in Portland has been separated and will be crushed and used as gravel during construction of the new Ocean Avenue Elementary School. The builder hired to raze the old school building plans to recycle at least 75 percent of the demolition debris.

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A pile of scrap metal awaits processing at the Baxter school demolition site. Scrap metal can be sold for about $100 a ton, said the contractor relations manager with the company that's handling much of the waste for the project.

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An excavator loads a container with material bound for a Lewiston facility, where the wood product from the Baxter Elementary School demolition site will be separated from the wastes that can’t be recycled and sold to large wood-powered mills for use as fuel.

for causing odor problems in landfills, is being taken to the CPRC Group in Scarborough, a major commercial recycler. The company uses the material in a variety of products, such as a soil additive, said John Adelman, CPRC president.

He also has seen a growing effort to reuse and recycle.

"The regulatory community is pushing it, and saying, 'You've got to do more because we don't want these things in the landfills.' The other thing that's pushing is the economic piece," Adelman said. "I think it'll continue to be more and more of what happens."

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at: jrichardson@pressherald.com