Gershow facility receives OK to expand

The Planning Board for the Town of Brookhaven, New York, has unanimously approved a plan by Gershow Recycling, a Medford, New York-based recycling company, to build a processing center at its facility in Brookhaven. Initially, the company had sought to build a 55-foot high building at its 25-acre site in Brookhaven. The board approved building a 69-foot high processing center as well as the inclusion of metal wall panels and revisions to the interior of the building.

Gershow processes ferrous and nonferrous metals as well as paper, supplying domestic and international foundries, mills and manufacturing facilities.

According to one report on the Newsday website, the company sought the expansion to allow it to install more conveyors and screening equipment to would help it improve the quality of its processed recyclables. Performing processing indoors also would improve the quality of the materials, according to Gershow representatives during the planning board meeting, by protecting the material from rain and other contaminants.

Representatives from the company told the board that with China’s recent tightening of quality specifications, it would be essential for recycling firms to use more equipment to process recyclables to ensure they meet the required quality specifications.

Moving the processing inside also would improve the recycler’s stormwater management and better control dust, the company’s representatives told the board.