Dive Brief:
- Ohio's Athens-Hocking Recycling Centers (AHRC) will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony today for its $2.5 million single-stream CHaRM facility in Athens County, OH, and will also offer public tours.
- The facility has enabled the region to increase recycling by extending its service area and taking in hard-to-recycle materials.
- While AHRC expands the breadth of recycling, the organization’s executive director Bruce Underwood and officials from the region prepare to visit Quasar Energy Group’s methane digester in Zanesville as AHRC considers buying one and installing it adjacent to its composting facility. The technology would produce electricity from treated municipal water.
Dive Insight:
AHRC has seen a healthy jump in business since implementing single-stream recycling, but they cannot say how much of the surge is due to single-stream because their customer base has changed; they are servicing many more people and plan to keep expanding.
"We are actively extending our service areas as fast as possible, at the same time trying to reach more businesses in the Athens area and in Logan," Underwood told The Athens News.
The company has been on a roll, recently securing two grants: one for equipment to process glass and another for cameras to capture illegal dumping.
The digester might be the next investment, one that will come with its own set of benefits. "This would be another opportunity to become more locally sustainable and provide more local jobs," said Underwood to The Athens News.
