The Brown County (Wis.) Solid Waste Board has endorsed a plan to convert its recycling program from a dual stream to a single stream program. The county is now awaiting an endorsements from Outagamie County and Winnebago County, two adjoining counties Brown Co. before going ahead with more intricate planning for a MRF.
At the present time the three counties share many features of the present recycling program. Among the three counties Outagamie and Brown county each operate a MRF, Brown operating one for paper; while Outagamie operates one for containers.
Under the plan endorsed by Brown County the two MRFs would be consolidated to one larger MRF.
Charles Larscheid, Brown County’s solid waste director, says that the hope is that combining the three counties under a single stream program would boost the collected material from around 45,000 tons per year to around 50,000 tons per year.
Larscheid expects the two other counties to endorse the new program within the next several weeks, with further approval by November; groundbreaking and further moves on the facility would then take place by early next year with the new MRF operating in 2009.
While still tentative, Larscheid feels the cost of a new MRF would be around $7 million. There hasn’t yet been a decision on where a new MRF would be located.
Combined, the three counties have roughly 500,000 people.