Quentin Kimber and his son Porter, 6, were on the way to the landfill on Saturday to dump a load of vinyl fencing. He said he’s no tree hugger, but it didn’t feel right to throw away material that could be reused.
“I’ve made several phone calls,” Kimber said. “Where can I recycle this at? And I couldn’t find any place.”
During his drive from Wellsville to Logan, he heard about an open house for a new recycling facility on the radio. So instead of turning into the landfill, he drove next door to Revolve.
The state-of-the-art recycling facility isn’t officially open yet, but Revolve is occasionally accepting materials to use as trial runs to fine tune their equipment. Mike Janci, Revolve plant manager, gladly accepted Kimber’s load as employees helped him dump the vinyl onto the tipping floor. “There’s what, 500 pounds probably of stuff that would be in the landfill for 50 to 100 years, at least, before it starts decomposing, if not more,” Janci said.
He said Revolve will bale up the vinyl and sell it so someone who can melt it down and make PVC pipes or black garbage cans. After unloading, the Kimbers grabbed some free food at the open house and Porter ventured into a maze created out of bales of recyclable material during the open house. Kimber said he’ll be back.
“Oh, heavens yeah,” Kimber said. “I’ll be bringing other plastic bags, stuff that you can’t recycle.”
Revolve President and CEO Alex Bearnson has lofty goals for the new facility.
“The ultimate goal is, we’re here to change the world,” Bearnson said. “We want to change the way that people think about waste. We don’t have to go in the landfill with everything.”
With the Logan landfill nearly filled to capacity and a new landfill opening up in Clarkson later this year, Bearnson said the mission of Revolve is to help municipalities, businesses and individuals recycle more of their waste stream, using the landfill only as a last resort.
He will host another open house on Monday specifically geared toward businesses. Bearnson said Revolve can take their waste and charge the same as the landfill, $29 per ton, and then pay back rebates twice a year depending on how much of their waste was recyclable. “If they are 50 percent recyclable, say, we’ll give them a 15 percent rebate that’s biannual,” Bearnson said. “They can take that money and give it to their employees for parties, for bonuses, whatever.”
One of the unique aspects of Revolve is its ability to process commercial and curbside waste as well as construction and demolition waste. Bearnson said, as far as he knows, Revolve is the second facility in the nation to do both.
Currently, construction and demolition companies in the area load their waste in trucks and take it to the landfill. But at Revolve, they can dump their loads for the same cost at a facility that is easy to access and won’t be covered in mud during the spring.
To read the full story, visit http://news.hjnews.com/logan_hj/high-tech-recycling-facility-hopes-to-divert-material-from-landfill/article_4fb87f12-1745-5eff-b13b-4d850d575a3c.html.