Officials will break ground Tuesday on the $42 million Berkeley County Recycling and Recovery Facility which will take up to 65 percent of trash out of the county’s waste stream and provide fuel for local cement plants.
Residents will not see any changes under the new program, which is expected to start in about a year. They will still put their trash and recyclables into the same bin, as many do now without a recycling program.
“This innovative approach to recycling is bringing Berkeley County, and South Carolina, into the 21st century,” said County Supervisor Bill Peagler. “This method encourages citizens to do what is environmentally friendly, without the hassle of sorting, proving it is possible to increase recycling efforts in communities.”
Owned by RePower South, the mixed-waste processing facility plant will be built on a 16-acre site at the county landfill on Oakley Road near Moncks Corner. It will be the first facility nationwide to combine mixed waste recycling and fuel manufacturing.
“We think that there is a better way to manage waste than just landfilling,” said RePower Chief Operating Officer Brian Gilhuly. “That’s always been our fundamental premise, to expand recycling reach and landfill diversion at a cost-effective solution.”
Once at the facility, RePower will pull out recyclables to sell and use some of the remaining bits of paper and plastic to make pellets to be sold as fuel, likely to cement plants around Holly Hill, Gilhuly said. The rest will go in the landfill.
The fuel pellets are physically and chemically designed to mimic the properties of coal, according to the company.
The facility, which will employ 60 people, will handle 50 tons of mixed waste per hour using optical sorters.
At present, metal brought to the county’s convenience center goes to Charleston Steel and Metal while paper products are hauled by Sonoco to a processing facility, officials said. Private curbside recycling is also available.
Although some doubt the effectiveness of mixed-waste recycling, saying commingled trash produces contaminated recyclables, Gilhuly says it is gaining popularity.
When recycling started, many homeowners had up to five bins to divide their recyclables according to type. Then came dual-stream recycling, which separated paper and cardboard from glass, plastic and metal, and, most recently, single-stream, or all recyclables in one bin. Charleston County and Summerville have single-stream.
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