Waste Management’s Detroit Recycling Center is an example of how Detroit is transforming into an economically diverse metropolitan area, Mayor Bing said. The company was able to take a large vacant commercial building and turned it into a sustainable business operation.
Waste Management will employ six persons to begin operations of recycling center.
This facility is an investment in the City of Detroit and all of southeast Michigan, Steiner said. Waste Management is thrilled to be able to create this facility to help residential and commercial customers throughout the Detroit Metropolitan area ‘Think Green.’
Robert Ficano, Wayne County executive, said the facility will assist in commercial and industrial businesses in the county realize more sustainable operations.
Recycling is becoming increasingly important as businesses, counties and cities seek to reduce their environmental impact, Ficano said. This facility will makeWayne County a ‘greener place to do business by giving Waste Management’s local customers an increased opportunity to recycle.
Primarily, the recycling facility will manage cardboard, office paper, shredded paper and industrial plastics from Waste Management’s southeast Michigan customers. The company hopes to increase the facility’s operations to accommodate additional materials, including materials from the upcoming City of Detroit pilot recycling collection program.
Detroit Recycling Facility Operations
After the arrival at the Detroit Recycling Facility, all trucks are weighed to determine the amount of recyclable material being delivered for processing. The truck scales are connected to computers which records the weight from the trucks and the amount of materials in them. After weighing in, trucks then continue with the tipping floor to unload their materials. Recycled materials are then being released to a 30 foot-long conveyor system that feeds into elevated sorting equipment.
The 25-foot high sorting equipment passes the material over a series of specifically spaced angle screens and large fingered spinning discs to further classify the material.
The recycled materials are then moved to a large industrial baler to compress the various grades of products into bales weighing up to one ton (2,000 lbs.) to enable for easier storage and handling. The industrial balers compress the material into a rectangular chamber and mechanically wrap several metal straps around the bale to hold it tightly together before ejecting a perfectly formed rectangular bale that is stackable and ready for shipment to market.
