Going Coastal

Construction is complete. The scales are in place. The processing equipment is installed. The employees are hired. The finishing touches are all in place. All Coastal Recycling Services (CRS) is waiting on before it opens its gates and flips on the switch are the final state and local inspections.

CRS is a full service mixed C&D recycling facility based in Jacksonville, Fla. The facility, which sits on 15.3 acres of land in the northeastern quadrant of the city, cost $11 million to construct, took three years to permit and build and is owned and operated by Coastal Recycling Services, a Florida Limited Liability Corp. company. The five partners who make up CRS are Charlie Latham, Bob Malouin, Joe Tate, Ed Scaro and Tracy Laumer. Latham and Malouin will manage the new facility which is equipped with custom-built recycling equipment, solar panels and an inbound and outbound scale.

CRS received what Latham says is the largest Small Business Development loan in Florida history in the amount of $3.8 million for the facility. Krause Manufacturing of Bellingham, Wash., custom-built the C&D recycling system CRS will use to sort material. When the partners were deciding on a manufacturer for its processing equipment, Latham says they traveled up and down the East and West Coasts to tour several existing plants. The facility boasts a solar panel system designed and installed by Entero Energy of Austin, Texas. It consists of 220 solar panels situated on top of the 15,000 square-foot processing barn. The panels will supply 10 percent of the electricity used for recycling.
 

'RISKY' BUSINESS
Opening up a mixed C&D recycling facility at a time when the construction and demolition industries are still well below "pre-crash" levels, may seem like a risk, but to Latham, opportunity was knocking.

"We started looking at Jacksonville in 2007," Latham says. There were several factors that made locating in Jacksonville appealing. The first, he says, was no one else was doing commingled recycling in the area. CRS will be Jacksonville's first true commingled C&D recycling facility, according to Latham.

Jacksonville is the largest city in the country by area, with the Duval County limits and the city limits being one and the same. Latham observed that all other disposal options for contractors are located on the west side of town. CRS is located in the northeast part of the city near the 9A/Interstate 295 artery, making it a convenient stop.
 

HAULER FRIENDLY
The convenient location isn't the only way CRS is attempting to save customers time. The facility is designed to be user friendly, too, says Latham. Several test drop offs have been completed in an estimated 5-minute turnaround time from gate to gate, according to Latham. There are inbound and outbound scales equipped with intercoms and video cameras. There is an outside printer beside the outbound scale, so haulers can take their receipts and go.

"All the partners have significant hauling experience and as such, we built this to be the ideal haulers facility," Latham explains. The partners, most of whom worked together in the corporate offices of Superior Services prior to its acquisition by Vivendi in 1999 (now Veolia Environmental Services), started a C&D recycling facility in Southern Georgia in 2003 once their noncompete agreements had expired. "We worked very successfully and became the largest rolloff hauler in Southeastern Georgia," Latham says. But then came the big crash in the construction industry.

"We lost 75 percent of our customers. They either went bankrupt or out of business," recalls Latham. The partners sold their Georgia business and decided to invest their assets in Jacksonville where the market looked better.

CRS will not be establishing a hauling company in Jacksonville. "There are over 40 very capable haulers in Jacksonville, and the market does not need another one," says Latham. The company has a "preferred hauler" system for contractors who conduct business with CRS. CRS will either send the contractor a list of preferred haulers to contract with or direct them to a list of preferred haulers available on its website, www.coastalrecyclingservices.com.
 

A CUSTOMIZED PROCESS
The processing equipment was designed specifically for the Jacksonville market.

There is an A line and a B line with an eight-inch under differential. Anything greater than eight inches stays on the A line. Anything below eight inches goes on the B line. There are two trommel screens, one for three inch minus and one for ¾-inch minus.

"We are separating out aggregates. We have magnets, air movers and destoners," Latham says. He expects to have a 20 percent residual from the processing. In Jacksonville, a recycling facility is mandated to have a 60 percent recycling rate upon opening and an 80 percent recycling rate within 30 months. Latham believes CRS will be able to process at the 80 percent level when it opens. The facility is permitted to process 1,000 tons of material per day at full capacity. The facility also provides documentation in support of LEED credits for co-mingled loads, and Malouin is a LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP BD + C). CRS will be the only C&D recycling facility in Jacksonville that offers this level of recycling for co-mingled loads. "Now contractors can use only one container on site and still meet their LEED recycling goals," says Malouin.

"We are prepared to recycle all major aggregate byproducts. We are still working on [finding end markets for] shingles, carpet and drywall. We expect to have those resolved in the next few months," Latham says.

The end markets that CRS has found for its products have all been local. Latham attributes it to the commercial diversity of the area. "The great thing about Jacksonville is that it is a large city, but it is in a rural area of the state."

There are pulp and paper plants for the wood and scrap dealers for the metal recovered from the facility. Concrete will be crushed by a third party to start with, but Latham says a crusher could be brought onsite in the future.
 

STATELY BENEFITS
The state of Florida's Recycling Business Assistance Center (RBAC), operated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, has been a valuable resource to CRS. "End markets will always be one of the biggest challenges," Latham says. The RBAC (www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/rbac/) has been a helped CRS to locate end markets for material.

Initially there will be about 20 employees, although as CRS reaches capacity it expects to have 40 employees. Latham is not sure when the markets will come back and estimates C&D material generation is down about 30 percent in Jacksonville.

"It is starting to come back up," he says, although he isn't sure when it will reach pre-crash levels. "It is hard to say when we will be close to capacity."

Latham is optimistic that legislation set to take effect in Florida on Jan. 1, 2012 will help direct more C&D waste through the recycling stream because it will require processing of C&D waste and sets state recycling goals. (See sidebar, "Required Recycling")

Latham expects CRS to open in mid-September. The company says it is prepared to explore new market entries in the Southeastern U.S. once the economy begins to improve.

To view a photo gallery of Coastal Recycling Services, visit www.cdrecycler.com/coastal-recycling-services-photo-gallery.aspx.

To watch a video news story on Coastal Recycling Services, visit www.cdrecycler.com/coastal-recycling-services-news-video.aspx.

The author is associate editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and can be reached at ksmith@gie.net.