Burns & McDonnell’s Minneapolis-St. Paul Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Group is helping bring national recycling trends local by retrofitting McLeod County’s recycling facility, located in Minnesota, through a new design-build project. The retrofit will support the building’s transition from five-sort to single stream recycling, addressing local demand for increased sustainability and greater convenience for county residents which mirrors national recycling trends. The project will quadruple the facility’s recycling processing capacity from 5,000 tons to 20,000 tons of material per year. Under the new design-build contract, Burns & McDonnell will utilize its in-house team to plan, design and construct the facility with an accelerated schedule for completion. The firm’s unique philosophy of integrating the design process with construction outcomes helped secure Burns & McDonnell’s role as prime contractors of the project, which has progressed from the planning and design stages and is about to begin the initial construction phase.
“The county’s primary goal is to meet the demands of citizens in a way that is fiscally responsible, which the project accomplishes by being funded entirely through the county’s Solid Waste Abatement Fund, while also taking into account long-term environmental needs,” said Robert Craggs, department manager of Burns & McDonnell’s Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Practice. “And by reusing select portions of the facility’s equipment and building infrastructure, McLeod County is able to save more than $1 million. In addition, the new design encourages greater community participation in recycling and will increase the county’s revenue stream from the sale of increased quantities of processed recyclable materials.” The facility, located in Hutchinson, Minn., will serve McLeod County and the surrounding region. The $4.4 million project is scheduled for completion in spring 2015.
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