After trying for more than a year to cite a municipal solid waste transfer station on a parcel of land in Cincinnati, Waste Management Inc.’s Ohio subsidiary has received permission instead to put a C&D debris sorting center on the site.
According to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer in early August, some residents near the site—a former landfill—have contested Waste Management’s efforts to receive solid waste permits for two years, but the company has been able to modify its plans to accommodate C&D debris without having to go through the same permitting process. The city government of Cincinnati had also been contesting Waste Management’s original plans.
The Waste Management of Ohio transfer station opening at the site of the former Environmental Land Development Association landfill is accepting C&D debris, including wood, drywall, brick and concrete.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer report, the company’spermit “allows for construction materials to be sorted at the facility and reloaded into boxes or trailers, where it will then be shipped to other sites for recycling.”
The facility can apparently open without the permission of the Cincinnati Board of Health, which has reportedly denied a license for a solid waste transfer station permit each year since 2002.
At least one neighbor quoted in the local media is skeptical about Waste Management’s intentions for the site, wondering aloud to the Enquirer Reporter whether any agency will monitor how the company uses the site and what materials they will haul there.
Kathy Trent, government affairs director for Waste Management, told the newspaper that the facility’s use as a C&D transfer station will last for at a year-and-a-half, as the site will be a staging area for demolition debris sorting from a nearby major demolition project.