Wisconsin鈥檚 Dane County Solid Waste Division received the National Waste & Recycling Association鈥檚 (NWRA) Construction & Demolition Debris Recycler of the Year and Sustainability Partnership Game Changer Awards at a luncheon today, part of NWRA鈥檚 Executive Leadership Roundtable event. Dane County was honored for its Rodefeld Landfill C&D Recycling Facility.
Dane County opened a C&D transfer station in 2013, a site where materials were dumped and then trucked to another facility for processing. At the time materials were being trucked over 80 miles for processing, resulting in significant transportation fees for the county. In September of the following year, Dane County brought in four partners, Landfill Reduction & Recycling (LRR), SCS Engineers, Sparta, and General Kinematics to help convert the existing transfer site into a recycling facility.
Each of these partners contributed to making Dane County鈥檚 goal a reality. SCS provided building design and engineering services for the project. SCS worked within the footprint of the existing transfer station building and included green features such as natural daylighting, LED lights, minimal additional paved areas, and utilized heat from the Rodefeld Landfill鈥檚 gas-to-energy system. Sparta was responsible for the design of the equipment. This included system design, integrations, controls, manufacturing of all conveyors and steelworks, and installation.
General Kinematics provided the key processing equipment that is responsible for screening and density separation. LRR is responsible for the operation of the equipment and for finding end markets for the recycled materials. 鈥淒ane County鈥檚 partnership kept C&D recycling as a viable, cost-effective option for the Dane County community,鈥� said Darrell Smith, President and CEO of NWRA. 鈥淭his project serves as a reminder that there are great benefits to keeping reusable materials out of landfills.鈥�
The entire processing line is housed inside the structure in an effort to keep the facility and surrounding area clean. This minimizes wind-blown debris as well as dust. Dane County also requires all loads coming in or going out to be covered and performs regular site cleanups.
Dane County and its partners had five goals in mind: to save air space in the adjacent landfill, save money, free up customer fees for other services and initiatives, keep C&D recycling viable, and to meet other sustainability goals. In 2016, the site processed 48,000 tons, and is currently on pace to process 60,000 tons of C&D this year. Each ton processed saves the county $15-$17 by recycling the materials instead of burying them in the landfill. Dane County has also saved 60,000 cubic yards of air space because of the C&D facility, which prolongs the life of the Rodefeld landfill saving tax payers money and being environmentally conscience.
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