EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP – The Atlantic County Utilities Authority officially opened its new single-stream recycling center in Egg Harbor Township last Thursday, allowing the ACUA to sort single-stream recyclables at its Delilah Road location for the first time since 2008.
ACUA President Rick Dovey said the new recycling center will enable Atlantic County to handle recyclable materials in the “most productive and efficient way” possible.
“The significance of this building is that it can handle the volume of recycling and the variety of recycling commodities that are now able to be recycled,” Dovey said at the opening ceremony Thursday, Aug. 25.With the adoption of single-stream recycling collection in January of 2008, the ACUA stopped sorting recyclables in Egg Harbor Township because the facility there was not equipped to separate the new mix of materials. While the move to single-stream collection had many benefits, including a more efficient collection process and the ability of the ACUA to increase the range of materials accepted, it also required the recyclable materials to be processed at another private facility.
However, thanks to a partnership with the New York-based Hudson Baylor Corporation, the recycling center has been retrofitted to handle all materials collected by the ACUA, and processing can take place on site. In December of 2010, the ACUA entered into a 10-year agreement with Hudson Baylor, allowing the company to upgrade the ACUA’s recycling center into a single-stream processing facility. The improvements to the system cost an estimated $5.5 million. Hudson Baylor will operate the plant, and Hudson Baylor and the ACUA will share the revenues from the sale of the sorted materials.
Hudson Baylor President Scott Tenney said the partnership will be beneficial to both organizations.
“It’s a pretty amazing group of people,” Tenney said of working with the ACUA.
Previously, when residents would combine materials in their recycling bins, the ACUA could not process them. But now, even if paper is mixed with plastic and aluminum is recycled with glass, the complex system of conveyor belts and machinery at the new recycling center will sort the mix of materials out, eventually producing giant bales of processed single materials. The bales each weigh between 800 and 2,000 pounds, and they are sold and shipped to companies in the United States and internationally, where they are used to create a variety of new products like synthetic fibers, new paper and cardboard products, and new aluminum products, according to Tenney. Meanwhile, glass will be recycled into landfill cover and will also be used in asphalt paving material.
At the current rate of recyclable material values, it is estimated that the ACUA will make more than $2 million per year from the new recycling center.
Joe Hart, the operations supervisor at the center, said the plant can process anywhere from 15 to 25 tons per hour, depending on the condition and quality of the material.
“It’s a highly adaptable system,” he said.
Hart says the recycling center will receive around 150 tons of material to process each day during the summer, and in the winter months, around 115 tons of recycling will arrive at the plant every day. Then, Hart and his team of sorters get busy, working in conjunction with the machinery and conveyor belts to sort and separate the different materials.
“This is a wonderful day in Atlantic County,” Atlantic County Freeholder Alisa Cooper said at the opening ceremony. “We are very proud of this facility.”
