On February 20th, your Town Clerk, Jane Garcia, and 2 members from the Community Association’s Environmental Sustainability Committee, Alice Lovely and Mary Yurko, traveled to St. Lucie County’s Recycling Facility to enjoy a tour of the operation.
Upon arrival, the group was greeted by Ms. Valentina Rodriguez, Solid Waste Marketing & Outreach Coordinator, who led the tour with great confidence and a wealth of information. The tour began with being shown a piece of Trex Decking, which is made from recyclable materials and is frequently used to construct outdoor decks, requires no maintenance, is scratch- and fade-resistant, and is super durable. The products you frequently use at home could be recycled into decking for someone to enjoy many days of relaxation in their backyard!
The next stop was the Styrofoam recycling station. Some folks are unaware that Styrofoam can be recycled, but it has to be self-sorted and self-delivered to the recycling facility. The Styrofoam (whether it is of the packaging type or egg and food clamshell “to go” containers) is inserted by 1 worker into the Styrofoam recycling machine, is heated, and comes out of the machine in the form of a solid, snake-like tube, which is formed by another worker into a “brick”. It can be repurposed into various products like outdoor furniture, roofing tiles, and coat hangers, just to name a few. It is quite an interesting process!
Unfortunately, just before the arrival of the attendees, the recycling center equipment (conveyors, sorters, balers) stopped working, but that didn’t stop the ladies! They were eager to learn about the process! They were able to walk the route that recyclables encounter while being sorted, then baled. During the tour, the group witnessed the in-house maintenance employees working diligently on the equipment to get it back up and running, and others sweeping up the general area of the building.
Once Ms. Garcia, Ms. Lovely, and Ms. Yurko walked through the recycling center, they managed to get a few snapshots in front of the baled recyclables (which can weigh up to 1000 pounds). Bales of aluminum cans, cardboard, milk jugs, laundry detergent jugs, and other recyclables are transported by tractor-trailer truck to their final destination, where they will be transformed into something new!