Kent County Director of Public Works Doug Wood and Director of Solid Waste Dennis Kmiecik at the county’s new recycling center at 977 Wealthy St. SW.
County’s new recycling outlet up and running
David Czurak
The recycling has already begun, even though the official dedication ceremony is weeks away.
Kent County Director of Public Works Doug Wood said construction on the county’s new $12 million recycling and education center is done and everything went well — so well that the facility has been operating on a part-time basis for several weeks.
Kent contracted with Rockford Construction Co. and Design Plus, both of Grand Rapids, for the building’s exterior. The county chose RRT Design and Construction for the interior because the Melville, N.Y., firm specializes in solid waste processing and recycling facilities.
“They coordinated very well and things worked out. It came in under budget,” said Wood.
The new center at 977 Wealthy St. SW has the capability of recycling up to 144 tons of trash a day. Since the county’s old facility at 322 Bartlett St. SW recycled only 15 tons a day, the new facility can reprocess more trash in one hour than the old plant could in an entire eight-hour workday.
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The dedication ceremony and open house for the new recycling and education center will be held at 11 a.m. Aug. 20. The center’s groundbreaking ceremony was the same date a year ago.
| Another benefit of the new center is that it’s a single-stream recycling facility, meaning that neither the residents nor the drivers of the trucks doing the pick-up have to separate the recyclables any more.
Wood said the new process will help lower the cost of collecting trash in two ways.
“The city of Grand Rapids or any company that uses single stream doesn’t have to sort out anything anymore. They can just put it in the truck and move on. So the savings there is they can do more stops.
“Another big savings is, when you’re doing all that lifting, there is a tendency to have more driver injuries. So this should reduce that,” he said, referring to the fact that carts are replacing the sometimes-heavy bins. “The cart will be picked up mechanically. The carts will be wheeled to the back of the truck and an arm will come across and pick them up and empty them.”
But Wood also noted that the cost to process recyclables will rise slightly due to the investment that has been made in the new center and to the expectation that more items will be reprocessed there. He said residents recycle more when a single-stream process is available because they don’t have to separate items and the cart holds more items than a bin.
“In all communities, without exception, when they moved to single stream, the volume of recyclables went up. That is what we expect will happen, which will make our facility a little more cost effective, as well,” he said. The higher volume of materials means the department will have more scrap to sell on the recyclables market.
The plant on Bartlett used a dual-stream processing system. One stream would recycle paper items like newsprint and cardboard, while the other would reprocess metal, plastic and other items. Drivers would make separate trips for each recyclable stream to the facility after they sorted items. Now, the items will be sorted in the new center. “Everything will be comingled, and will be separated by using machines at the new facility,” said Wood.
The new center also has an educational element. The department plans to demonstrate to students and adults what qualifies as trash and what types can be reused, recycled, or composted. Wood said the center also will inform people how they can reduce the amount of trash they create. A program has even been developed for preschoolers through first graders.
The DPW is financing the center’s construction with a 20-year bond at an interest rate of 4.19 percent. The department bought the site the center sits on from a private foundation for $1, and sold the Bartlett property to the Interurban Transit Partnership for its expansion project. The Bartlett plant will close at the end of this week.
“For the past three weeks, we’ve been testing the facility, and everything has been going well. We’ve just been running mornings for now, but I expect them to be going full force on Aug. 2,” said Wood.
“We’re in the final testing stage. We cranked out 20 tons in one hour. That’s two tons more than we expected. But we won’t run at that level,” said Commissioner Art Tanis.
The dedication ceremony and open house for the new facility will be held at 11 a.m. Aug. 20. The center’s groundbreaking ceremony was the same date a year ago. |