Montgomery County’s main recycling center, the Materials Recovery Facility, was built 28 years ago. It can process 80 tons of materials per day, which include commingled bottles and cans, as well as paper. Between 130 and 170 tons of materials are taken to the facility every day. Montgomery County officials want to build a new recycling facility in the next few years and add robots to make sorting more efficient. The county’s environmental director said the improvements are aimed at bringing Montgomery up to speed with “21st-century standards” for recycling.
Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection Director Adam Ortiz said 50 to 60 tons of materials are shipped every day to recycling facilities outside Montgomery County, including some outside Maryland.
The county’s Department of General Services issued a notice to prospective developers on July 15, asking for proposals for potential sites of the new facility. The county is considering whether a neighboring county would be a partner and host the new site. Part of the need for a new plant, Ortiz said, stems from recycling contamination at the current facility, or the amount of waste improperly placed into the recycling stream. He said the department is looking at investing in robots to sort materials instead of humans. “We’re not taking advantage of robotics and optical sorters,” he said, referring to the current practice. With new technology, “there’d be a fraction of [our] nonrecyclable material today.”
Ortiz said recycled materials are run through a baling machine that squishes materials into cubes roughly the size of small cars. “We take those bales, and they’re weighed and sold on the commodities market,” he said. Ortiz said a new precise sorting method for Montgomery County means new products made from recycled goods can be sold for higher prices. One ton of commingled materials properly sorted could sell for $300, compared to $25 before it was sorted, he said.
If recycling loads are too contaminated, they are sent to the county’s incinerator in Dickerson, to be burned into ash, Ortiz said. County Executive Marc Elrich has pledged to close the incinerator, but county officials have said that would require the county to achieve a recycling rate of more than 80%. The county’s recycling rate is currently 60%.