Roofing tear-off is one of the most landfill-bound waste streams in American construction. Concrete and reclaimed asphalt pavement are recycled at high rates, but old shingles are mostly buried. This report quantifies how much roofing debris the United States sends to landfill each year, how that tonnage divides across the states, and why shingle diversion has stayed low. Every published figure below traces to a government or industry primary source, and every derived number is labeled as a Roofing Brief calculation.
Executive summary
- The United States generated about 600 million tons of construction and demolition (C&D) debris in 2018, of which roughly 143.8 million tons went to landfill, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- In 2015, the last year EPA disaggregated C&D debris by material, about 13.5 million tons of asphalt shingles were managed nationally and 11.49 million tons were landfilled.
- Asphalt shingles were landfilled at about 85 percent in 2015, far above the C&D stream average of roughly 24 percent (Roofing Brief calculation from EPA data).
- Shingles accounted for about 8.7 percent of all C&D tonnage sent to landfill in 2015, despite being a small share of total C&D generation (Roofing Brief calculation from EPA data).
- Roughly 85 to 90 percent of shingle waste by weight comes from roof tear-offs rather than manufacturing scrap, per figures the National Association of Home Builders supplied to state agencies.
- The Roofing Brief modeled shingle landfill tonnage for every state by housing-unit share. California (about 1.16 million tons per year), Texas (about 1.0 million), and Florida (about 836,000) lead the estimate.
- Shingle recycling into pavement has not scaled. Recycled asphalt shingle stockpiles reached about 1.44 million tons at the end of the 2024 construction season, up 22.5 percent from 2023, per the National Asphalt Pavement Association.
Key findings
- The United States generated about 600 million tons of C&D debris in 2018 and sent about 143.8 million tons to landfill. Source: U.S. EPA, Advancing Sustainable Materials Management, Construction and Demolition Debris material-specific data, 2018.
- In 2015, about 547 million tons of C&D debris were managed nationally, with 132.2 million tons directed to landfills and 414.9 million tons to next use. Source: U.S. EPA, Construction and Demolition Debris Management in the United States, 2015 (Table ES-1).
- Asphalt shingles totaled about 13.5 million tons managed in 2015: 11,491,724 tons to landfill and 2,033,276 tons to next use. Source: U.S. EPA, 2015 (Table ES-1).
- The shingle landfill rate was about 85 percent in 2015, compared with about 24 percent for C&D debris overall. This is a Roofing Brief calculation dividing landfill tons by total managed tons in EPA Table ES-1.
- Asphalt shingles made up about 8.7 percent of all C&D tonnage sent to landfill in 2015. This is a Roofing Brief calculation from EPA Table ES-1 (11,491,724 divided by 132,184,998).
- Asphalt shingle generation was about 12.33, 12.72, and 12.70 million tons in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Source: U.S. EPA, Construction and Demolition Debris Generation in the United States, 2015 (revised estimates).
- An estimated 7 to 10 million tons of shingle tear-off waste and installation scrap is generated in the United States every year. Source: National Association of Home Builders, cited by Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
- Tear-off waste makes up about 85 to 90 percent by weight of the re-roofing waste stream. Source: NAHB, cited by Connecticut DEEP.
- A typical residential tear-off produces about 1 to 3 tons of shingle debris for one to two layers, and a 25-square roof can produce 3 to 5 tons. Source: roofing and dumpster industry estimates (Tier 3).
- California landfills about 8.7 million tons of C&D debris per year, roughly 21.7 percent of the state waste stream. Source: CalRecycle.
- Construction and demolition debris accounts for nearly 25 percent of Florida’s municipal solid waste stream. Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
- Asphalt producers kept about 641,000 tons of recycled asphalt shingles out of landfills in 2022, up 7 percent from 2021. Source: National Asphalt Pavement Association, IS-138 industry survey.
- Recycled asphalt shingle stockpiles reached about 1.44 million tons at the end of the 2024 construction season, up 22.5 percent from 2023, indicating that collected shingles are increasingly held or discarded rather than paved. Source: National Asphalt Pavement Association.
- By housing-unit share, the three states with the largest modeled shingle landfill tonnage are California, Texas, and Florida. This is a Roofing Brief calculation described in the methodology below.
How much roofing waste the United States buries
The clearest national accounting comes from the EPA. In its 2015 material-level analysis, EPA divided the C&D debris stream into landfill and next-use destinations. Total C&D debris that year was about 547 million tons, split into 132.2 million tons landfilled and 414.9 million tons directed to next use. The next-use total is dominated by aggregate, which is mostly crushed concrete and reclaimed asphalt pavement used as road base.
Asphalt shingles behave very differently from concrete. Of the roughly 13.5 million tons of shingles managed in 2015, 11.49 million tons were landfilled and only 2.03 million tons went to any next use. The next-use figure itself is mostly aggregate and small compost and soil-amendment volumes, not high-value pavement feedstock. Later national snapshots keep the total large: EPA reported about 600 million tons of C&D debris in 2018 with about 143.8 million tons landfilled, though EPA did not repeat the by-material split for that year.
Table 1. C&D debris managed in the United States, 2015 (tons)
| Material | Landfill | Next use | Landfill share |
|---|---|---|---|
| All C&D debris | 132,184,998 | 414,851,027 | 24.2% |
| Concrete | 66,535,034 | 315,222,966 | 17.4% |
| Asphalt pavement | 5,042,361 | 78,116,664 | 6.1% |
| Wood | 27,053,922 | 11,896,078 | 69.5% |
| Gypsum drywall | 10,803,717 | 2,238,283 | 82.8% |
| Brick and clay tile | 10,587,745 | 1,559,255 | 87.2% |
| Asphalt shingles | 11,491,724 | 2,033,276 | 85.0% |
Landfill-share values are Roofing Brief calculations from the EPA tonnage columns. Source: U.S. EPA, Construction and Demolition Debris Management in the United States, 2015, Table ES-1.
The pattern is consistent. High-value mineral streams (concrete, asphalt pavement) are recovered at high rates. The materials that dominate roof tear-off and interior demolition (shingles, drywall, wood, brick) are landfilled at 70 to 90 percent.
Where the waste comes from
Roofing waste is overwhelmingly a replacement stream, not a new-construction stream. NAHB estimates 7 to 10 million tons of shingle tear-off waste and installation scrap per year, and reports that tear-offs account for about 85 to 90 percent of re-roofing waste by weight. The rest is metal flashing, wood sheathing, underlayment, and manufacturing offcuts.
At the project level, a typical residential tear-off produces about 1 to 3 tons of shingle debris for a roof with one or two existing layers. A larger 25-square roof can produce 3 to 5 tons. These per-project figures come from roofing and container-rental estimates and are less rigorous than the federal tonnage data, so they are treated as Tier 3 context rather than primary evidence. For homeowners budgeting a project, the debris volume is one of the reasons a tear-off costs what it does, as covered in the Roofing Brief tear-off roof cost guide.
Why shingle diversion stays low
Recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) can substitute for a portion of the binder and aggregate in new hot-mix asphalt. In practice, that market has not absorbed the waste stream. In 2015, only about 15 percent of managed shingles went to any next use, and the pavement-specific share was smaller. More recent industry data shows the recycling channel contracting rather than expanding. NAPA reported that producers kept about 641,000 tons of RAS out of landfills in 2022, but stockpiles of collected shingles rose to about 1.44 million tons by the end of 2024, a 22.5 percent jump from 2023. Rising stockpiles mean material is being collected but not used, often because of state specification limits on RAS content in pavement and concerns about cracking performance.
The result is that shingle tear-off remains close to a single-destination waste stream in most of the country. For the recycling side of this story, see the Roofing Brief reports on roofing and shingle waste recycling and on recycled shingles used in roads.
Roofing waste by state
The EPA does not publish shingle landfill tonnage by state, and few states isolate roofing from the broader C&D stream. To estimate the geography, the Roofing Brief allocated the national shingle landfill total across states by each state’s share of total housing units, using the U.S. Census Bureau 2025 housing-unit estimates. The logic is that re-roofing volume scales roughly with the size of the housing stock. The full method and its limits are in the methodology section.
Table 2. Modeled asphalt shingle tonnage sent to landfill per year, top 15 states
| State | Housing units (2025) | Share of US | Modeled shingle landfill tons/yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 14,995,410 | 10.1% | 1,162,000 |
| Texas | 12,848,245 | 8.7% | 996,000 |
| Florida | 10,789,047 | 7.3% | 836,000 |
| New York | 8,738,856 | 5.9% | 677,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 5,882,221 | 4.0% | 456,000 |
| Illinois | 5,504,295 | 3.7% | 427,000 |
| Ohio | 5,367,824 | 3.6% | 416,000 |
| North Carolina | 5,168,052 | 3.5% | 401,000 |
| Georgia | 4,734,436 | 3.2% | 367,000 |
| Michigan | 4,694,141 | 3.2% | 364,000 |
| New Jersey | 3,827,726 | 2.6% | 297,000 |
| Virginia | 3,779,544 | 2.5% | 293,000 |
| Washington | 3,436,929 | 2.3% | 266,000 |
| Arizona | 3,373,746 | 2.3% | 262,000 |
| Tennessee | 3,291,207 | 2.2% | 255,000 |
Roofing Brief calculation. Inputs: national shingle landfill total of 11,491,724 tons (U.S. EPA, 2015) and state housing-unit shares (U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Estimates of Housing Units, NST-EST2025-HU, July 1, 2025). Tons are rounded to the nearest thousand. These are modeled allocations, not measured state totals.
Two states anchor the real-world picture with their own measured data. California landfills about 8.7 million tons of all C&D debris per year, roughly 21.7 percent of its waste stream, per CalRecycle. In Florida, C&D debris is close to 25 percent of the municipal solid waste stream, per the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Both figures cover all C&D materials, not shingles alone, but they confirm that the largest housing states also carry the largest construction waste burdens.
Diversion rates and what they miss
National next-use rates hide wide geographic variation. States with construction-waste diversion requirements and active shingle recyclers, such as California and Washington, recover more than states with no nearby processing facility, where the practical diversion rate for shingles is near zero. The honest limitation is that no federal or state dataset publishes shingle-specific diversion rates for all 50 states, so a uniform national rate is the only defensible modeling assumption at the state level today. Where a state reports total C&D diversion, roofing shingles almost always sit at the low-diversion end of that range because of the recycling barriers described above.
Original synthesis: three Roofing Brief calculations
1. Shingle landfill rate versus the C&D average
Formula: shingle landfill tons divided by total shingle tons managed, compared with the same ratio for all C&D debris. Inputs: EPA 2015 Table ES-1. Result: 11,491,724 / 13,525,000 = 85.0 percent for shingles, versus 132,184,998 / 547,035,025 = 24.2 percent for all C&D. Interpretation: shingles are landfilled at more than three times the rate of the overall stream. Limitation: 2015 is the most recent year EPA split C&D by material, so this ratio may understate current recycling gains or losses.
2. Shingle share of landfilled C&D
Formula: shingle landfill tons divided by total C&D landfill tons. Inputs: EPA 2015 Table ES-1. Result: 11,491,724 / 132,184,998 = 8.7 percent. Interpretation: nearly one in eleven tons of C&D debris buried in the United States is roofing shingles. Limitation: single-year, national figure; state ratios will differ with roof-material mix.
3. State-level shingle landfill allocation
Formula: national shingle landfill tons multiplied by each state’s share of national housing units. Inputs: EPA 2015 shingle landfill total and Census 2025 housing-unit estimates. Result: the Table 2 state figures. Interpretation: it converts a single national number into a defensible geographic ranking. Limitation: it assumes re-roofing rates are proportional to housing stock and ignores roof-material mix (more tile and metal in parts of the West and Southwest), housing age, and storm-driven replacement spikes after hail and hurricanes, all of which shift real tonnage.
Charts worth building
- Title: Landfill rate by C&D material, 2015. Data: Table 1 landfill shares. Source: EPA 2015. Insight: roofing and interior-demolition materials are landfilled at 70 to 90 percent while mineral streams are recycled. Citation-worthy because it isolates roofing as a laggard.
- Title: Modeled shingle landfill tonnage by state. Data: Table 2. Source: EPA and Census (Roofing Brief calculation). Insight: three states account for roughly a quarter of the estimated total. Useful as a map.
- Title: Recycled asphalt shingle stockpiles, 2021 to 2024. Data: NAPA stockpile and use figures. Source: NAPA IS-138. Insight: collected shingles are piling up faster than they are used, signaling a diversion bottleneck.
Methodology
Source selection prioritized federal datasets (EPA C&D generation and management reports, U.S. Census housing-unit estimates), state environmental agencies (CalRecycle, Florida DEP), and national industry bodies (NAHB, NAPA). Secondary and trade sources were used only for per-project debris estimates, which are labeled Tier 3. Where EPA published revised figures, the revised numbers were used. Conflicting numbers were resolved in favor of the primary source with the most transparent methodology, which for national tonnage is EPA’s material-level 2015 analysis.
The state allocation model multiplies the EPA 2015 national shingle landfill total by each state’s 2025 housing-unit share. It does not measure state tonnage directly. It assumes re-roofing activity is proportional to housing stock, which is a simplification. Real tonnage is higher in states with older housing, more asphalt-shingle roofs, and frequent hail or hurricane damage, and lower where tile, metal, and flat roofs are common. The model also holds the national landfill total at its 2015 level because EPA has not published a newer by-material split. Figures that could not be verified against a primary or clearly sourced secondary record were excluded. Last updated July 2026.
Source quality ranking
Tier 1 (primary): U.S. EPA Construction and Demolition Debris Management and Generation reports; U.S. Census Bureau housing-unit estimates; CalRecycle; Florida Department of Environmental Protection; National Asphalt Pavement Association industry surveys.
Tier 2 (credible industry and trade): National Association of Home Builders estimates as reported by state agencies; Construction and Demolition Recycling coverage of NAPA data.
Tier 3 (reputable commentary and calculators): roofing contractor and container-rental per-project debris estimates.
Excluded: unsourced roundup pages, AI-generated summaries, and any figure that could not be traced to a named dataset.
Journalist-friendly additions
Most quotable statistics
- About 11.5 million tons of asphalt shingles were sent to United States landfills in 2015 (U.S. EPA).
- Shingles are landfilled at about 85 percent, versus about 24 percent for all C&D debris (Roofing Brief calculation from EPA data).
- Nearly one in eleven tons of landfilled construction and demolition debris is roofing shingles (Roofing Brief calculation from EPA data).
- California buries about 8.7 million tons of construction and demolition debris a year, about 21.7 percent of its waste stream (CalRecycle).
Data limitations
EPA’s last by-material C&D split is 2015. State shingle tonnage is modeled from housing shares, not measured. Per-project debris weights are industry estimates. No dataset publishes shingle-specific diversion rates for all states. Storm-driven replacement and regional roof-material mix are not captured in the state model.
Recommended downloadable dataset fields
State; year; total housing units; housing-unit share of US; modeled shingle landfill tons; measured total C&D landfill tons (where reported); state C&D diversion rate (where reported); presence of RAS recycler (yes or no); source citation.
Press summary (about 150 words)
Roofing tear-off is one of the least recycled major construction waste streams in the United States. Federal data show that about 11.5 million tons of asphalt shingles were sent to landfill in 2015, roughly 85 percent of all shingles managed that year, compared with about 24 percent for construction and demolition debris overall. Shingles made up nearly nine percent of everything buried in C&D landfills. Unlike concrete and old pavement, which are recycled at high rates, shingles rarely find a second life. Recycled asphalt shingle stockpiles rose to about 1.44 million tons by the end of 2024 as the pavement market absorbed less material. The Roofing Brief modeled shingle landfill tonnage for every state by housing-unit share, and California, Texas, and Florida lead. The analysis combines U.S. EPA, U.S. Census, CalRecycle, Florida DEP, and National Asphalt Pavement Association data.
Five suggested headlines
- America Buries 11 Million Tons of Old Roof a Year
- Why Your Old Shingles Almost Always End Up in a Landfill
- Roofing Waste by State: Where the Old Roof Goes
- Concrete Gets Recycled. Shingles Get Buried.
- The 85 Percent Problem: Roofing’s Landfill Habit
Ten FAQs
How much roofing waste does the United States landfill each year? EPA data show about 11.5 million tons of asphalt shingles were landfilled in 2015, out of roughly 13.5 million tons managed.
What share of shingles is landfilled versus recycled? About 85 percent of managed shingles were landfilled in 2015 and about 15 percent went to any next use, a Roofing Brief calculation from EPA figures.
How does that compare with other construction debris? All C&D debris was landfilled at about 24 percent in 2015, so shingles are buried at more than three times the average rate.
What share of landfilled C&D debris is roofing? About 8.7 percent, or nearly one ton in eleven, was asphalt shingles in 2015, per a Roofing Brief calculation from EPA data.
Which states landfill the most roofing waste? By housing-unit share, California, Texas, and Florida rank highest in the Roofing Brief model, at roughly 1.16 million, 1.0 million, and 836,000 tons per year.
How much does a single roof tear-off produce? A typical residential tear-off yields about 1 to 3 tons of shingle debris, and a 25-square roof can reach 3 to 5 tons, per industry estimates.
Why are shingles so hard to recycle? The main outlet is recycled asphalt shingles in pavement, but state specification limits and performance concerns cap demand, so collected material is stockpiled or landfilled.
Is shingle recycling increasing? No. NAPA reported recycled asphalt shingle stockpiles rose to about 1.44 million tons by the end of 2024, up 22.5 percent from 2023, indicating less material is being used.
How much of shingle waste comes from tear-offs? About 85 to 90 percent by weight comes from re-roofing tear-offs rather than new construction or manufacturing scrap, per NAHB.
Where does the national tonnage data come from? The U.S. EPA Construction and Demolition Debris Management and Generation reports, which are the authoritative national source, last split by material for 2015.
Citation format
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Construction and Demolition Debris Management in the United States, 2015. Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Advancing Sustainable Materials Management, Construction and Demolition Debris material-specific data, 2018. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Estimates of Housing Units, NST-EST2025-HU, 2025. Source: CalRecycle, Construction and Demolition Debris Recycling. Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Construction and Demolition Debris Recycling. Source: National Asphalt Pavement Association, IS-138 Asphalt Pavement Industry Survey on Recycled Materials, 2022 to 2024.
For related roofing-waste and sustainability coverage, see the Roofing Brief report on asphalt shingle roof runoff pollution and the guide to sustainable roofing options.
Reviewed by The Roofing Brief Team. Last reviewed July 2026.