Beginning Saturday, a glass-chomping, cardboard-gnashing machine will unburden Howard County residents who diligently separate their plastics and papers for recycling.
“It?s a big hungry monster, and you?ve got to feed it with this material,” said facility manager Dave Taylor, who estimated that the machine could process 20,000 tons of recyclables per month when Howard County signs on.
The Waste Management Recycle America added Howard County to its list of Maryland and Virginia service areas through its futuristic, 50,000-square-foot Materials Recycling Facility in Elkridge.
Not requiring residents to separate their own recyclables will encourage more recycling, said Alan Wilcom, chief of the Howard County Recycling Division of Environmental Services.
“We are trying to make it easier and simpler and more convenient to set out the recycling,” Wilcom said.
Residents can mix paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, metal cans, glass bottles and jars in a recycling bin or see-through bag. Yard waste, however, must remain separate from the other materials.
The machine, which separates the materials using an elaborate system of magnets, screens and ultraviolet light then prepares it for shipment, also will save waste management time and money spent loading and processing the materials, Taylor said.
“It looks terrible at first, when you see everything get dumped. With the technology we have, everything goes through our machines, and they do mechanical separation,” Taylor said.
But the machine can?t do everything on its own.
Eighty-two quality-control workers help prevent problems, like the specks of brown paper bag that can tarnish what will later be a crisp white newspaper, he said.
The $5 million facility is run by Waste Management Recycle America, which operates 80 recycling plants nationwide. The facility is the best in the nation, Taylor said.
“It?s state of the art,” said Jim Marcinko, the Maryland and Virginia district manager for Waste Management Recycle America.
