HazWaste Recycling Facility Set to Open in Ohio

For eight years, Jeff Wilhite has been working to open a recycling center for hazardous waste from businesses in Summit and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio.

One word -- hazardous -- is the reason the project has taken so long.

``It's like we were trying to push an elephant up a greased hill,'' Wilhite said.

Efforts to win approval for the collection-and-recycling center that would handle small amounts of certain toxic wastes from companies for a fee failed in Twinsburg Township and Walton Hills.

Now such a center is set to open in April in South Akron, and the city of Cleveland is seeking a site for a second facility.

The centers will be unique in the United States and are being strongly supported by the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agencies.

Operating under the name BizMat, the Akron center will be located at a four-story factory that was the first plant of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co.

The nonprofit Ohio Organization for Recycling and Use was organized to direct and get the program started.

Nearly $900,000 in grants have been arranged from federal, state and county sources and private foundations, and a contract has been finalized with Indianapolis-based Heritage Environmental Services, the company that will operate the center and recycle the waste.

The center is closely patterned after Summit County's successful household hazardous waste center in Stow.

Companies will pay $75 per vehicle hauling the waste to be recycled. Of that fee, $55 would go to Heritage and $20 would go to a fund to clean up ``brownfields,'' or contaminated industrial sites.

The $75 would be a major savings for companies because getting rid of enough waste to fill a car trunk or the bed of a pickup truck can cost $300 to $500 plus a fee per pound.

Under environmental laws, the center would not accept waste from large chemical users. The center would be for companies that use no more than 220 pounds of select toxic chemicals per month.

The center will handle cleaning materials; coating materials, including paints, stains and shellacs; machine and motor oils; fertilizers; insecticides; and fluorescent bulbs. The center also will recycle computers and most batteries.

Wilhite and William Bandy Jr., chairman emeritus of Akron's Environmental Design Group and a BizMat board member, both said they didn't know what volume of materials might be collected at the center, but they are hoping to get 10 percent to 15 percent of area businesses involved.

That would produce gross annual revenues of $5.5 million -- $4 million for operations and $1.5 million for brownfields.

Research shows that businesses in Northeast Ohio annually generate 31 pounds of hazardous waste per employee.

No brownfield-cleanup grants will be awarded in the first two years, Wilhite said. That money will be invested and later used to help local businesses deal with environmental problems.

Proponents say the center will prevent environmental problems caused by the improper disposal of waste.

Such waste should not go into landfills, be dumped down drains or be poured on the ground.

Most of the waste will be shipped out of the Akron center within 10 days, he said.

BizMat must recycle at least 60 percent of the materials collected under its state permit.

The plan calls for the centers to operate for 24 months. A decision then will be made on whether to continue the recycling effort and on whether it's financially self-supporting.

Work on fixing up the site will begin in the next few weeks, said Wilhite, who's now deputy planning director for the city of Akron and who was head of the Summit-Akron Solid Waste Management Authority in December 1996 when he suggested setting up such a facility.

Volunteers from the Akron Public School construction trades program, the Akron Fire Department and Laborers Local 894 are expected to help get BizMat's 27,000 square feet in shape. The Carter Lumber Co. is donating building materials.