Executives from Waste Management Inc. and business and community environmental leaders from the San Diego, Calif., area joined together to unveil a Construction and Demolition processing and recycling center in El Cajon, Calif. The facility will recover and process up to 130,000 tons of commercial construction waste, as well as traditional recyclables, annually.
The C&D Processing and Recycling Center was built in response to growing consumer and government interest in green programs to both reduce the amount of building materials waste going to landfills and to encourage reuse, recycling and recovery.
WMI estimates that C&D accounts for more than 22 percent of the overall waste stream in California, 35 percent of the waste at Miramar Landfill, and it is estimated at more than 100,000 tons annually for the unincorporated areas of the county and over 1 million tons countywide.
"We have provided C&D collection services to developers since the 70's. With the new sort line, we can take it to the next level and help contractors actually recycle these materials as opposed to simply hauling them to the landfill," said Carl Scherbaum, WM of San Diego¡¯s district manager.
The facility, costing around $7 million, was custom built by Lubo. The MRF separates C&D recyclables from the waste stream collected at commercial building sites or home remodeling projects. The line also has state-of-the-art TiTech optical sorting capabilities for processing dry recyclables such as aluminum cans, glass and newspapers from commercial trash loads.
Fully staffed, the line could employ up to 30 people and process up to 30-35 tons per hour of C&D materials and approximately 25 tons per hour of dry recyclables.
"The sort line's advanced technology allows us to process up to 50 times the amount of recyclables as a traditional manual sort line," continued Scherbaum. "This investment into San Diego's green infrastructure not only demonstrates our long term commitment to recycling in San Diego, but also reaffirms our strong belief that green solutions make good business sense, even in this economy."
In addition to launch of the new sort line, WM recently introduced the Green Squad to provide businesses a resource for turnkey sustainability. The team of eco-consultants works to assess a company¡¯s green practices ¨C water efficiency, energy efficiency, general sustainability and waste to resource management ¨C and develop a comprehensive sustainability strategy.
The Green Squad also provides C&D consulting services to businesses and contractors manage waste materials from determining the best options for diversion to coordinating the entire process from collection to hauling.