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Recycling Center Upgraded: County Officials Showcase New Equipment

Posted on: Sunday, 23 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Janet L. Metzner, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Apr. 23--The Monongalia County Solid Waste Authority's community recycling site is now bigger and more easy to use.

County officials showed off nearly $200,000 worth of improvements Saturday during an open house.

"This is really a community appreciation day, because the community is what made this possible," said Al Stiller, member of the authority's board of directors.

The improvements are crucial, said Commission President Bob Bell. He noted that the site processed 3,000 tons of recyclables last year -- far less than what the county could handle in optimum conditions.

"We are only doing 20 percent of recyclables that are available because we didn't have the facility," he said.

The new space will allow the authority to process twice as much recyclable material within the next year.

Bell added that in 2002, when the authority began using the site, it had only one warehouse-type building.

Now the facility has 6,500 more square feet of indoor storage and work space. More indoor space means more room to keep recyclables drier before compacting them into bales, said Bob McConnell, chairman of the board.

And drier bales means the county gets more money per bale, he said.

Residents benefit, as well, when they bring their recyclables to the site. The muddy areas where they once had to drop off plastic, cans, newspaper and cardboard, are now set upon cement pads. Five new newspaper bins are set up.

The improvements should attract more people to drop off their recyclables, McConnell said. Machine means more cash

One piece of equipment will help the county get more money for its recycling. Stiller showed off two bales of compressed plastics held together by black wire ties. At first glance, they looked similar -- both piles of crushed plastic.

But he pointed out that one bale still had intact bottles strewn throughout -- not a good thing.

Intact bottles have air in them, and take up more space, he said.

"Look at the weight of the bale --865 pounds," he said. That's about normal, he said.

But a new machine, a bottle perforator, made especially for the site by Northco fabrication company of Westover, will allow a similarsized bale to weigh 1,500 pounds, Stiller said.

"In a truck, we can get about 23 bales, and we are paid by the weight," about 30 cents a pound, he said.

"The perforator will give us highdensity bales and increase our profitability on our plastics. And that's our goal," he said.

Stiller worked with Todd Hamrick, production manager for Northco Corp., to design the machine for the site.

The perforator, finished in March, uses about 20 circular saw blades to put holes in plastics, Hamrick said.

Holes release the air and flatten the tough molded plastics of laundry detergent bottles, and soda bottles, he said.

"It works at a rate three times higher (faster) than anything on the market," he said. "It helps make better bales to help productivity and cost in recycling." Recycling has benefits

There are benefits for recycling, he said.

"It's going to save the resident money if they recycle because it lowers the cost of goods when we bring in recycled material," McConnell said.

Take newsprint, for example.

"If we had to go out and cut down trees every time we wanted to print a newspaper, it would raise the cost of newspapers dramatically. What we are doing is slowing down the process, and we can keep the cost low," he said.

The center is already saving money for Mon County residents. McConnell said recycling reduces "tipping fees," or the cost per ton that local governments pay to dump in landfills. Higher tipping fees can mean higher garbage disposal fees for residents.

"We saved over $120,000 just in the tipping fees to the landfills," he said.

Bell added that a 1-ton bale of plastic saves 685 gallons of oil, 30 cubic yards of land space and 5,700 kilowatts of energy -- that includes land that could have been used to bury old product, or energy and fuel it would take to develop new products.

"If you want to put that in perspective, in Mon County we can save 1.5 million gallons of oil a year -- In Mon County alone," Bell said.

"We're our own worst enemy. We waste. We're just throwing it down the drain, we're burying it with the dirt."

"We need to learn how to recycle, and we can be self-sufficient," he said.

Cheat Lake Elementary School kindergartener Noah Mills was one of the youngest residents to attend the open house Saturday.

"He is the reason we are here," said his mother, Angie Mills, gently mussing his brown hair. "His teacher talked about Earth Day yesterday in school. And he wanted to know more about recycling and how we can help."

Noah's sister, Rebekah, said her family will recycle cans and newspapers.

"I like to recycle all the pop tops," she said. "For our Brownie troop we are recycling the pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House."

The most interesting thing at the open house was the "big packs of metal," she said, referring to bales of cans.

Nicole Flood volunteers for the authority. She focuses on urging residents, including children, to recycle.

"The big thing is getting in front of people who can make the choice for their families, for their children," she said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

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Source: The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.)

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