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West Florida Recycling Closes For Now, Won’t Impact ECUA Customers
April 26, 2014
West Florida Recycling — the company that processes recyclables for ECUA, the City of Pensacola and Santa Rosa County — has temporarily closed due to heavy rains and standing water. The company recently filed for bankruptcy.
“We notified all of our clients, including Santa Rosa County, that we could not accept material until the water receded, and invoked the clause in our contract that allows service to stop in situations like this. It was not an easy decision to make but for the safety of our clients, their trucks and equipment, and that of our own employees, we had to suspend our operations until the flooding recedes,” said Larry Hoover, CEO of West Florida Recycling.
That means no more recycling for now in Santa Rosa County or Pensacola, but for now, ECUA says it has a temporary alternative plan in place. ECUA will load recyclables onto an 18-wheeler that can hold the loads of eight smaller ECUA trucks and send the materials to Georgia for processing. The process, according to ECUA, won’t cost the utility or customers any more money.
“Overall it’s pretty much a break-even situation as opposed to the alternative which would be to take these recyclables to the landfill,” said Natalie Bowers, ECUA spokesperson.
For now, Pensacola will haul recyclables to the landfill, and Santa Rosa County is in the processing of removing 21 recycling drop-off sites.
Hoover that as of Friday, there is still standing water at the facility even with a week of no rain.
“We hope to resume operations as soon as the weather and flooding will allow, and we apologize for this inconvenience. Our struggles with flooding at our current leased facility have been well-documented, and every time we have to stop operations because of flooding means we aren’t able to generate revenue by re-selling recycled materials and we aren’t able to put our people to work,” Hoover said.
Pictured: Images provided by West Florida Recycling that show flooding at their facility.
Comments
11 Responses to “West Florida Recycling Closes For Now, Won’t Impact ECUA Customers”
Recyclable stuff needs to be dealt with appropriately and not thrown into a landfill that we might eventually need for something else.
I am glad to hear the ECUA had a plan unlike Santa Rosa County. They just snatch up the containers and close the recycling sites! Better this is typical Santa Rosa County!
So..here’s my mommas little boy, who was taught to be kind to the earth, and treat nature as a friend. I dog cuss people who throw their cigarette butts, and baby diapers on the side of the road, as well as their fast food bags, etc. I recycle to a fault. Now, is it a moot point?
Why exactly did the County Commissioners get rid of our recycling plant? Recycling is becoming big business and a necessity these days. It also gave the area a few more jobs which are really needed. I think our County commissioners need to look at the future with more people needing recycling. Tourists come here and add a lot of trash to our beaches and landfills, then they leave.
Well the old director of the landfill did have a nice recycling facility until the new director took over and conviced the county commissioners to close the facility and laid everyone off just before the holidays. Maybe it’s time for the commissioners to open their eyes and step up and stop wasting tax dollars and open our facility up again. And put more people back to work in our community.
Mark t I agree the county had a recycling operation at landfill with county inmates as labor but the powers that be were foolish by thinking that the 3rd party recyclers would actually save them money instead it has cost them money now ecua is being allowed to transport this out of state it’s a shame Escambia county can’t get good leadership instead of letting money leave our area
Escambia County Should Be recycling with county workers at a county facility and eliminate these Mickey Mouse private contractors..
ECUA is still Recycling,,,,,read the article again……My Son work’s for ECUA and he pick’s up recycle,,,,,and yes they are taking it to Georgia…..
Standing water and piles of dirty recyclable food containers and other plastics and papers, warm weather? Shouldn’t we be thinking there is a health concern with this situation?
>>I am confused. ECUA says it is taking the recycles to Georgia, but at the same time they are saying they will take them to the landfill for now?
The story does not say that. It says ECUA is hauling their recyclables to a facility in Georgia. The City of Pcola was forced to take theirs to the landfill. ECUA’s recyclables are still be recycled, just in Georgia for now.
I am confused. ECUA says it is taking the recycles to Georgia, but at the same time they are saying they will take them to the landfill for now? So they are dumping everything into the landfill? I guess my recycle can can stay here until they decide to recycle the stuff in it!