Looking to relieve metropolitan New York businesses of their aged computers and printers, extinguished fluorescent bulbs, dead batteries and other potentially hazardous materials, an expanding Connecticut company will open an electronics recycling facility next month in Mount Vernon. ?Turning a profit from other companies”™ federally regulated waste, We Recycle! Inc. expects its Westchester County operation to grow from five employees at the start to 50 within three years.
A 4-year-old company with headquarters in Wallingford, Conn., WeRecycle! has signed a long-term lease at 249 East Sandford Blvd. in south Mount Vernon with ABS Partners Real Estate L.L.C., a New York City firm. The vacant 56,600-square-foot building was last occupied by AIN Plastics, a division of ThyssenKrupp Materials NA. It is located in the city”™s Empire Zone for economic development, which makes the recycling company eligible to apply for various state tax credits and sales tax refunds and exemptions.
The Connecticut-based company will continue to operate its electronics recycling facility in Meriden, said James J. Hogan III, the company”™s director of government affairs. Hogan joined WeRecycle! last year after serving 18 years as Westchester County recycling director.
He said a fleet of five trucks will haul discarded electronic equipment and what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems “universal waste”™ ”“ such as mercury-containing fluorescent bulbs, batteries and leaded cathode ray tubes from computer monitors and televisions ”“ from businesses and institutions in the metropolitan area to the Mount Vernon facility. There they are broken down and separated into materials, including aluminum, plastic and steel, that are usually sold to other recycling businesses.
Hogan said the facility will draw most of its business from New York City, Westchester County and nearby southern Connecticut. Approximately 40 percent of the company”™s current customers are in the New York metropolitan area, he said, “and we see that as ever growing.”      Â
At Mount Vernon, “We anticipate pretty much a duplicate of what our Connecticut operation is initially,” Hogan said, while reducing transportation costs here. Eventually the company plans at its new plant “to implement a more sophisticated technology than what we currently utilize in order to recycle the electronics waste,” Hogan said.
Through the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency, WeRecycle! will apply for a $500,000 grant from the Empire State Development Corp. through that agency”™s Environmental Investment Program to purchase and install pollution-prevention and recycling equipment. Hogan said the equipment would enable the company to sort electronic wastes mechanically rather than manually as is now done at its Meriden facility.
WeRecycle! also provides data-destruction services to safeguard proprietary information and assets for businesses discarding computer hard drives. Those measures include a “triple-wipe” process for hard drives to eliminate both stored data and programs according to Department of Defense standards and physical destruction, Hogan said. ?With the state grant it seeks, the company plans to buy a low-speed, high-torque shredding device that reduces electronic equipment to 1.5-square-inch shards, Hogan said. Aluminum and ferrous metals can then be magnetically separated from the bed of material that remains on the conveyor belt.
In the expansion to Mount Vernon, “Empire State Development is helping us significantly,” Hogan said. The state agency also might provide a $150,000 performance-based grant to the company. “The more we invest in terms of hiring people from the community and expending money to improve the property, that enhances our attempt to get access to that $150,000 grant,” he said.
“We are pleased that New York state sees the value of investing in this emerging industry,” WeRecycle! president Mick Schum said. “With this new facility, WeRecycle! continues to be a pioneer in the industry, setting the bar high for data destruction and environmental responsibility.”
Hogan said the Mount Vernon facility should open in July and be in full operation by fall.
“Basically, we”™re interested in serving the electronic and universal waste needs of the Westchester County business community,” he said. The company also hopes to handle the electronics waste recycling program operated by Westchester County. That service currently is provided by two New Jersey companies, Hogan said.Â
“Many businesses are unfamiliar with the universal waste regulations” of the EPA “and actually unknowingly dispose of their universal waste in the dumpster. We need to help businesses and institutions understand that they need to properly handle their universal waste,” Hogan said.
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