Waste Pro Launches Recycling Program at Atlanta Airport

Date: November 17, 2009

Source: Waste Pro

Waste Pro Announces a New Recycling Program with Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport

Waste Pro announced the launch of a recycling program that calls for airport visitors to throw trash and recyclables into the same container. Waste Pro later sorts recyclables from waste, a move the airport expects will reduce the amount of trash it sends to landfills by 50 percent after a year and by 70 percent after two years. About 250,000 people Hartsfield-Jackson daily, and nearly 70 tons of trash are generated each day.

Waste Pro has teamed with GreenSortATL which is run by the airport's facility management company Atlanta Airlines Terminal Corp. and will create 28 jobs. Waste Pro USA transports the waste to a material recovery facility in Atlanta for sorting, and the company recently got permits to expand the facility. In an airport, where people are in a rush and may not have time to look for the right recycling bin, "the single stream really is ideal," said Waste Pro USA general counsel Jeanie Dubinski.

"We aim for GreenSortATL to become one of the largest such programs in the Southeast and to make Hartsfield-Jackson as green as any airport in the nation," said airport general manager Ben DeCosta in a written statement Thursday.

The program is already underway and will be phased in to increase the amount of recycling with the facility expansion expected next April. The airport currently has garbage cans and a limited number of recycling containers, and will be switching to new GreenSortATL cans.

The airport's waste stream includes about 37 percent solid waste, 29 percent cardboard, 10 percent office paper, 1 percent steel or aluminum, 9 percent trash bag liners, 6 percent plastic bottles and 8 percent towel waste.
Waste Pro's corporate headquarters are located in Longwood. Since its inception in 2001 Waste Pro has grown from one (1) truck and four (4) employees to operating over nine hundred (900) trucks with 1,450 employees from thirty-four (34) locations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama.

For more information, contact:
Bob Hyres
Executive Vice President
407-869-8800
bhyres@wasteprousa.com.

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