WKSU News: Building recycled as Cleveland and Akron recycle center

Wednesday, June 6, 2012 Building recycled as Cleveland and Akron recycle center Old Goodyear Aerospace hangar once produced Corsair fighter planes by WKSU's MARK URYCKI	Senior Reporter Mark Urycki

Greenstar's balers costs more than $500k each and optical sorters approach that cost.

In The Region:

A new company is about to begin separating and recycling trash for the cities of Akron and Cleveland. Houston-based Greenstar has set up operations in a former Goodyear Aerospace building at the Akron municipal airport.
WKSU’s Mark Urycki reports it now pays to recycle

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The recycle center sits in the shadow of the airdock where Lockheed Martin is now producing a high altitude blimp for the Navy.

Greenstar will lease the 200,000 sq. ft. building that was once owned by Goodyear Aerospace and produced Corsair fighter planes in World War II.

The $7m of equipment can sort and bale 25 tons per hour. VP Steve Dunn says they expect to double capacity in 18-24 months.

The Akron facility employs 43 now Greenstar says and expansion could increase could increase that to 75.

Greenstar Senior VP of Operations Steve Dunn.

In the morning, Greenstar’s 200 thousand square foot building is literally in the shadow of the former Goodyear Airdock. Now Lockheed Martin is building a super blimp inside. Greenstar’s building produced Corsair fighter planes in World War II. Now it’ll be producing raw materials from the local waste stream for other manufacturers. Akron Service Director Rick Merolla…

“Greenstar told us when they first toured this if they were going to build a recycling facility it would look just like this. Huge, clear span, no posts except on the outer perimeter. It’s wide open, overhead cranes… It’s perfect for recycling – we recycled the building.”

Greenstar got a 209 thousand dollar grant from the state. Greenstar Vice President of Operations Steve Dunn says they spent $7 million installing a single-stream system to process the waste.

"The technology is very very advanced now. There are two optical sorters on this line and they’re almost half a million dollars apiece. The baler is more than 500 thousand dollars. We have two balers so the systems themselves have gotten very expensive.”

URYCKI “So you can automate this process to some degree?”

DUNN “Yeah, there’s very little sorting by hand anymore. What’s sorted by hand is just to a do a quality sort after the mechanical screens and the optical sorters do the heavy lifting of actually sorting the material out.”

Cleveland and Akron residents will place all their recyclables in one bin and city trucks will collect them. The company will pay the cities for each ton of rubbish and give them a share of the sales as the material has been increasing in value on commodities markets. Demand from new markets like China has attracted interest in recyclable material that cities once had to pay someone to take. Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic recalls lobbying for legislation that would require a certain percentage of recycled content in products. Now he believes that some day landfills will be mined for their content.

The Mayor of North Canton and a commissioner from Ashtabula County were on hand to see the Greenstar facility. The company opened a similar plant in Poland Twp. in Mahoning County two years ago.

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