ReCommunity Opens State-of-the-Art Recycling Facility to Serve the Greater Hudson Valley

BEACON, N.Y., April 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ReCommunity, the largest pure play recycling company in the United States, today held the grand opening of its state-of-the-art automated recycling facility located in Beacon, New York.  ReCommunity invested $7.5 million to build and install state-of-the art sorting equipment in the 52,000 square foot building, located at 508 Fishkill Avenue, Beacon, NY to process recyclable plastics, old newspapers, junk mail, magazines, office papers, cardboard, tin, aluminum and glass food and beverage containers collected from throughout the northeast, including the greater Hudson Valley counties of Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan, Orange and Putnam and parts of southwest Connecticut.

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"ReCommunity is committed to what we call 'Leading the Recovery Revolution®' and we are happy to bring our services, along with new green jobs, to the Greater Hudson Valley," said Jim Bohlig, ReCommunity's chief executive officer.  "ReCommunity is a company with a purpose.  We exist to extract as much as value as we can from recyclable materials and convert them to 'recovered resources' that replace the use of virgin natural resources."

"Pattern for Progress believes in regional solutions to issues such as recycling, which clearly requires strategies that cross municipal borders," said Jonathan Drapkin, president and CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress.  "We applaud ReCommunity for building a regional recycling facility that will create jobs in the Hudson Valley, protect the environment and steer materials away from landfills for decades to come."

Additionally, Pattern for Progress Fellows Program has teamed with ReCommunity on a project to increase the Hudson Valley's recycling rate through education.  A group of fellows from Pattern is working on a pilot program at the Beacon City School District to educate students about recycling.

The ReCommunity Beacon facility uses "Single Stream" technology, the latest in Material Recovery Facility (MRF) technology.  It allows communities to collect recyclable materials using single bins inside homes and businesses as well as a single collection vehicle, reducing the costs and carbon emissions of recycling collection fleets.  By making recycling easier, and expanding the list of acceptable materials, residents and business in communities across the United States have recycled 15% - 30% more material than previously. 

At full capacity, ReCommunity Beacon will recover material that will prevent 261,186 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases (CO2e) from being emitted annually, which is equivalent to removing 47,838 cars from the road each year.  It will also save 122,955 cubic yards of landfill space and avoids a million gallons of wastewater from getting into landfills.

Once the materials arrive at the MRF, ReCommunity automatically sorts them into their various commodities, and bales them for shipment to other companies that convert the materials into new products.  Old newspapers can be converted into paper products and home insulation.  Aluminum cans can be made into appliances and new cans.  Plastics can be recycled into a variety of products such as carpet, clothing, toys, or new plastic bottles.  And glass is sized into synthetic aggregate or color sorted for re-melt into new glass. 

About ReCommunity

ReCommunity, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a leading recycling, recovery and repowering company that is focused on dramatically reducing the volume of land-filled waste through conversion into useful products such as recycled commodities, low-carbon energy, engineered feedstock, bio-fuels and other value-added recycled products.  The company aims to lead a "recovery revolution" by repositioning waste as a strategic community resource instead of a growing liability.  ReCommunity enables community partners to generate additional revenue, recover community owned resources, create new jobs, fund budget shortfalls and reduce their carbon footprint.  For more information, visit www.recommunity.com.

SOURCE ReCommunity