Kentucky City Adds Recycling Equipment

The city of Lexington, Ky., has added new equipment and expanded its recycling center to allow the city to increase the amount of recyclables it is able to process. The city also has added a new 10,000 square foot structure that will allow it to store an additional 600 tons of recyclables.

The expansion included around $3.7 million in new equipment that will speed the recycling process for a single-stream recycling operation, which began June 1, 2010. A spokesman for the city says that Machinex was the winning bidder for the equipment.

“Recycling is becoming easier in Lexington as we invest in new equipment at our recycling facility,” says Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry. “With expanded capacity at the recycling center, we can recycle more materials and lower the cost of waste disposal to the taxpayers of Lexington.”

Lexington currently processes around 22,000 tons of recyclables each year. A waste stream analysis performed last year revealed that around 70 percent of materials that the city disposed of could be either recycled or composted.

“Expansion of the recycling center means we can handle three times the volume of recyclables,” Newberry adds. “We will save taxpayers $1.5 million annually in landfill disposal fees and increase our recycling revenue.”

Along with increasing the amount of recyclables taken in by the city, the MRF also will be taking in more single-stream collected recyclables from surrounding communities, as well as private waste management firms.