Santa Rosa may be back to recycling soon.
The process came to an abrupt halt in Santa Rosa County at the beginning of January after Emerald Coast Utility Authority announced the previous month it would have to landfill collected recyclables due to the equally abrupt closure of Infinitus Renewable Energy Park (IREP), the facility which processed recyclables for ECUA, in October. This past Friday, ECUA celebrated the groundbreaking of its own interim materials recovery facility (IMRF) at the Perdido landfill. This marks the first step in bringing recyclable processing in-house.
Two conflicts slowed recycling in the region, both between businesses and governments. IREP officials cited a weak commodities market for its closure, while ECUA’s own website said the closure was, “due to a dispute between IREP and the City of Montgomery, AL, its primary customer.” Regardless of the reason, ECUA saw the handwriting on the wall and pursued constructing its own MRF in July of 2015.
ECUA would have had its own MRF years before had it not been for its own dispute with Escambia County. According to ECUA Public Information Officer Nathalie Bowers, “This goes back to 1995 when ECUA wanted to build a recycling facility and the Escambia Board of County Commissioners was opposed to that and filed suit against us, against ECUA to stop that from happening and they were granted a permanent injunction against ECUA constructing a MRF without approval.”
Over the course of 20 years, Escambia County granted ECUA in 2008 the right to collect recyclable material to be processed by a third party. Key closures of West Florida Recycling and IREP as well as Tarpon Paper Company’s added $12.50 tipping fee and inability to handle more than 30 percent of ECUA’s recyclables heralded last year’s approval by Escambia County for ECUA to construct its own MRF. Note the SRC BOCC looked into transporting recyclables directly to Tarpon only to find it too expensive as well.
ECUA and Escambia County officials at the groundbreaking expressed relief for political strife coming to an end to see recycling reestablished in the region.
Dr. Larry Walker, ECUA District 5 board member, said, “It’s a blessing for the community. (There is) no fighting, no name-calling. It’s a beautiful day…I thank God for the county commissioners who made this possible.” Walker said the IMRF will be able to serve Santa Rosa County, Escambia, the school districts, and more.
Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown said, “We’re proud to be able to offer ECUA’s IMRF a home. I believe working together we can achieve the state’s 75 percent recycling initiative.”
ECUA Chairman and District 2 Representative Lois Benson said community leaders not only wanted curbside recycling, “they told us, ‘It’s time to work together. We’re sick of governments bickering and fighting. We’re tired of governments suing governments because it costs all of us.’ And we listened.”
ECUA Executive Director Steve Sorrell, Friday, said, “This ECUA board has been just fabulous to work with, so has this county commission (and) from my perspective, (Escambia County Administrator) Jack Brown…We’ve been able to accomplish a lot of things because of the friendship we have developed and we’re not done yet.”
ECUA Public Information Officer Jim Roberts described the coming IMRF as a “sorting facility for a clean recyclable stream.” Roberts explained a “clean mrf” means the material coming into the MRF comes presorted by the customers.
ECUA anticipates completing the $9.5 million facility this summer. The 50,000 square foot structure on 120,000 square feet of property officials estimate will handle 165 tons of recyclable material per day with an estimated annual capacity of 40,000 tons of recyclable material.
As Santa Rosa County awaits the opening of the IMRF with Escambia County, SRC Commission Chairman Lane Lynchard said county staff has been in close contact with ECUA and Escambia, “keeping up with their plans and progress with an eye toward coming up with a solution for Santa Rosa County.”
He said there have been discussions of the county’s use of the facility when it comes online. “We’re looking forward to being able to once again start the recycling for our residents.”
The coming facility is interim because it is not the final project ECUA has planned. Roberts said this planned facility will not only handle separated recyclables but the entire garbage stream, removing recyclable material from it. Roberts said, “30 percent of the garbage stream consists of recyclable materials. Another 40 to 50 percent of garbage material can be dried, compressed, and made into flammable fuel pellets, (known as) refuse derived fuel.”
He said 70 percent of the total garbage intake will be treated as recyclable, the RDF (refuse-derived fuel) pellets a marketable product.
Bowers noted a rough three to five year timeline for the advanced facility.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Recycling to restart soon