Company Looks to Unveil Innovative Recycling Project

Recycling Partners Inc. is studying the viability of building between 40-70 solid waste recycling plants in the United States, Europe and Asia. The company claims that the new technology being designed for the facilities would allow the facilities to recycle to up 98 percent of the incoming solid waste, sharply reducing the amount of material shipped to landfills.

The company hopes to have a pilot site announced by the middle of next month. Further, the company hopes to break ground on its first location in six months. The company, headquartered in Alabama, is reportedly looking at a number of locations in the South, including Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana.

According to the company the recycling facilities could handle an average of  between 200 to 2,000 tons per day of MSW, depending on the size of the communities and demand. Construction costs could range from $5 million for the smaller plants to $20 million for the larger scale plants.

Arkansas is being evaluated for the largest of the proposed plants with an estimated total cost of approximately $750 million and a potential processing capacity of 40-50,000 tons per day of MSW coming on-line in increments of 5,000 tons per day.

The recycling facilities would extract steel, aluminum and some plastics that could be sold to end consumers. Other plastics, as well as additional municipally generated solid waste would then be processed and sold as cellulose fibers, in a process known as post process manufacturing. Ethanol production may also be in the future for RPI as they pursue technologies to produce ethanol for as little as $0.34 cents a gallon using waste products from the recycling plants.

According to a source at the company Recycling Partners is aiming to capture 1 percent of the MSW in the next five years.

The company also is in final negotiations to license its permits in Europe.