Archive: Around Town

The first ceremonial shovels of earth were thrown last Friday, to celebrate the launch of a nearly $2.5 million upgrade to the Tompkins County Recycling and Solid Waste Center, a project that speakers said is the product of productive partnerships, innovation, and forward thinking.  The upgrade is part of the ten-year service agreement between the County and ReCommunity (formerly FCR LLC), based in Charlotte, NC.  ReCommunity began operation of the Recycling and Solid Waste Center in February.

Manager Barbara Eckstrom, who has led the County’s Solid Waste Management Division for the past 25 years, noted that the significant improvements, accomplished through a public-private partnership, will greatly expand the opportunities to divert an ever-increasing amount of waste from the county waste stream, and will enable the County to reach its ambitious goal of 75% diversion by 2016—and look ahead to an 80% diversion goal by 2030. Eckstrom said that this project, and what it will be able to achieve, is all about collaboration to “do the right thing,” and thanked the many people, from across the community and beyond, who have worked together over the years to make it happen.

Graham Stevens, ReCommunity’s Vice President of Sustainability and Development, observed that the groundbreaking represents a program that is truly “ground-breaking”—results of collaboration and communication not going on in other places.  “Nobody else has goals that are this big,” he said.  County Legislature Chair Martha Robertson also noted that the program is setting a national example, earning Tompkins County recognition across the nation for its innovation and achievements in waste reduction.  John Casella, CEO of Casella, Inc., praised the effort as a “tremendous partnership” that will enable the community to achieve a high degree of reuse.

The new Center will be “like a farmer’s market for recycling,” said Stephen Klemann, ReCommunity’s Area Manager for Business Development, and the public will find recycling at the Center “safer, quicker, and a little simpler.”  There will be more covered bays, additional parking, improved signage and traffic flow with addition of a new access road; and residential and commercial traffic will be separated.

Once construction is completed, commercial loads that contain a high percentage of fiber, and sorted loads of cardboard or high grade paper will be baled at the Center and shipped to market, maximizing revenue.  Through a new waste diversion line, recyclable and reusable material from certain recycling-rich loads of garbage will be separated and diverted from the waste. Additional materials, including such items as rigid plastics, will also be accepted for recycling.

Legislator Carol Chock, chair of the Legislature’s Facilities and Infrastructure Committee, expressed high hopes for what the improved Center will achieve, saying it “fits with the best of Tompkins County sustainability goals”—further reducing waste in landfills, teaching people the value of recycling what was formerly buried in landfills at high cost, and helping all to think of resources as finite that should be conserved. And she maintained that Manager Eckstrom and her staff “could not have done a better job managing the process and the project.”

Construction will be completed by the end of October.  The County expects a grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to cover 50% of the construction cost.

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