MAHONING COUNTY Officials take 1st steps on plant to process recyclable materials

The plan would process recyclables locally instead of sending the items away.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County officials are considering construction of a plant to process recyclable materials locally instead of sending them elsewhere.
County commissioners voted last week to seek cost proposals from companies interested in studying whether the project is possible or just a pipe dream.
Timothy Berlekamp, recycling division director, stressed that it's still just an idea on the drawing board.
"I think we've got to get a study done to see if it's feasible or not," he said. "It might be totally outside the realm of possibility, but we won't know until somebody looks at all the numbers and tells us."
Berlekamp said the county collects about 750 tons of recyclable materials each month, which are separated and shipped to places such as Pittsburgh and Akron. There, handlers process the items into raw materials that are packaged and sent to manufacturers, who use the materials to make products ranging from plastic lumber to glassware.
He said it generally costs the county about $40 per ton to ship the materials and pay tipping fees in the counties that accept the materials.
The concept
His idea is to build a facility here that would accept all types of recyclable products and process them into their respective raw materials, which the county then would sell to manufacturers.
Berlekamp said a location for the proposed facility has not been determined.
He said the project also could include administrative offices for the recycling division, which is located on Westchester Drive in Austintown, as well as other county agencies.
It also could be used as a centralized training facility for solid waste and recycling professionals, something that currently does not exist, he said.
He estimated the cost of such a project could range from $5 million to $12 million.
Determining feasibility
"No one has ever done anything like this," Berlekamp said, noting that the feasibility study would be a cumbersome project in itself.
He said a contractor would have to look at local recycling figures, compare them to figures from other cities across the country, and develop projections for future recycling trends, all aimed at determining whether such a project could be self-sufficient.
"This is not a small project," he said. "This will take some pretty good expertise to know what we want to do here."
If the monthly collection were to eventually grow to 2,000 tons or more, the facility would pay for itself, Berlekamp said.
He thinks the county could get up to 2,000 tons per month within three years.
Berlekamp said if the county does decide to go ahead with the project, it probably would not be up and running before 2007, and would take at least two to three years of operation before it breaks even financially.
"Either it's going to work or it's not," Berlekamp said. "If it's not, we'll forget about it. But I think we've got to at least give it a look."
bjackson@vindy.com