RethinkWaste has been chosen for the 2012 Recycling Systems Excellence Gold Award by the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA). The award will be presented to Rethink at SWANA’s Wastecon annual convention Aug. 14, 2012, in Washington, D.C.
According to RethinkWaste, the award reflects its five-year, $46 million master plan to redesign and construct a recycling and transfer facility at its Shoreway Environmental Center in San Carlos, Calif., to divert as much material as possible from the landfill.“It is a real honor and a privilege to receive the top award in the country for our efforts to transform the outdated Shoreway Recycling and Disposal Facility into the Shoreway Environmental Center,” says Kevin McCarthy, executive director of RethinkWaste. ”We have an outstanding facility that delivers cost savings to the ratepayers every day through our innovative facility design.”
The San Carlos facility includes a 70,200-square-foot material recovery facility (MRF) where recyclables in RethinkWaste’s service area are processed. The MRF houses processing equipment from Bulk Handling Systems Inc., Eugene, Ore., designed to handle single-stream recyclables. The plant replaces Shoreway’s previous 48,000-square-foot building. The new MRF became fully operational in May 2011 and has the capacity to handle more than 80,000 tons per year on one operating shift.
The master plan improvements of the MRF include a 14,780-square-foot expansion of the existing 62,000-square-foot transfer station building to increase unloading room for public customers and allow for a 30,000-ton-per-year increase in organic materials collected from local residents and businesses. The Shoreway Environmental Center also includes a dedicated Environmental Education Center.
Other features of Shoreway’s master plan include a new public recycling center for the free drop-off of materials for recycling and a buy-back center for redeeming bottles and cans. It includes a scale house and traffic enhancements and green building features, such as the use of photovoltaic (solar) panels to generate renewable energy to power site operations, translucent panels to maximize day lighting and use of native and low-water plants, among others. The facility also was certified LEED gold from the U.S. Green Building Council.
"This award is a great recognition of our dedication and commitment to reduce waste from the landfill and we are excited to see what other opportunities Shoreway holds for us in our sustainability efforts in the future," says Jim Porter, San Mateo County Public Works director and chairman of the board of directors for RethinkWaste.
RethinkWaste is a joint powers authority of 12 public Agencies in San Mateo County.