Hazelwood Recycling Center Part of Republic Services $19-Million Investment

will be spending $18.9 million to renovate its recycling centers in the and Bella Villa, Mo.

As part of the renovations, expansion will occur which will require the compnay to hire additional staff. The company said it expects to hire up to 20 new local employees when the renovations are complete, which is scheduled for the begining of 2013.

Improvements to the two centers include:

• Adding technology to make the sorting process more efficient
• Enabling the company to triple its recycling capacity from around 10 tons per hour to as much as 30 tons per hour

“The improvements we’re making to our recycling centers in St. Louis allow us to meet current demand, and we’re adding capacity to accommodate even more recycling in the future,” said Republic Services Area President Tim Trost in a statement.

According to Siemens' 2011 Green City Index, St. Louis recycles only 3 percent of its waste, compared with the 27 city index average of 26 percent.

The new single-stream recycling service process makes recycling easy for customers, enabling them to use one bin to consolidate their recyclables including steel, aluminium, plastic and glass containers, as well as cardboard and paper, according to Trost. The process also makes it easier for Republic Services to collect and process at its recycling canters.

"We want St. Louis to rethink waste and shift the paradigm to focus first on recycling, and then send the material that remains to the landfill," Trost said. "We believe that if residents simply add a designated recycling bin in their kitchen -- the place where most people decide whether to recycle an item or throw it away - that the amount of material people would recycle would increase by at least 50 percent."

Republic services more than 200,000 households and more than 27,000 commercial and industrial accounts in the St. Louis metro area with 313 trucks, 16 waste facilities and  the two recycling centers.