Forsite, FCR Recycling partner to develop recycled fuel facility

Forsite Development announced that it will team with FCR Recycling and its community energy solution approach for the design and operation of a $30 million dollar “Recycled Fuel” facility that will vastly improve Mecklenburg County’s recycling rates and transform non recycling recoverable waste into a fuel that can be utilized to create renewable electricity.

This recycled fuel will be used to power the proposed 30-megawatt renewable energy biomass power plant to be developed at ReVenture Park. The 667-acre eco-industrial park is being developed on the former Clariant Corp. chemical plant site in western Mecklenburg County.

The recycled fuel will be created by processing waste through a state of the art system that will maximize the recovery of recyclables, and eliminate materials that can cause air pollution during energy conversion, like PVC, electronics and batteries. The processing system will further optimize the physical and chemical characteristics of the fuel with FCR’s proprietary engineered fuel technologies, and densify it into a renewable fuel.

Forsite president, Tom McKittrick, stated, “The utilization of recycled fuel as our feedstock is the single greatest difference between our project and a conventional waste-to-energy plant that burns raw garbage. We are laser focused on ensuring that our project is environmentally responsible and does not contribute to air pollution.”

The project will likely be developed at the closed Statesville Avenue Landfill site. Beyond the significant new investment, the project will also create more than 100 new jobs in the County and is slated to be operational April of 2012. The facility will dramatically increase Mecklenburg County’s recycling rate, and divert approximately 340,000 tons of waste annually from local landfills. Over the life of the project, the amount of trash diverted would be enough to completely fill Bank of America Stadium.

The recycled fuel process will represent a significant stride towards zero waste. The aggressive recycling recovery part of this project will not only harvest hundreds of thousands of tons of renewable resources, it will insure Mecklenburg County is fully compliant with the North Carolina laws which bans bottles and cans from landfills and dramatically improves the environmental footprint of the county.

Project facts:

• Combined with Mecklenburg County’s single stream recycling efforts, the project is likely to push the County residential recycling rate to greater than 35 percent and landfill diversion rate to levels in excess of 65 percent.
• The project will offset more than 250,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually by recovering additional recyclables from the waste stream.
• The recycled fuel created from the project will produce enough green electricity to power more than 30,000 homes each year.
• The processing facility is expected to create more than 100 new jobs and $5,000,000 annually in new tax base.
• Additionally, the process will offset more than 95,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually by replacing coal to produce base load power.