Facility for hard-to-recycle materials to open in Harrisville, New York

A site that was previously home to an industrial park for wood products, a sawmill and a transfer station in St. Lawrence County, New York, will soon become a recycling facility for hard-to-recycle materials.

Geiter Done, a subsidiary of Buffalo, New York-based WNY Inc., will purchase the building from the Development Authority of North County (DANC) for $400,000. The Watertown Daily Times reports this transaction is expected to close shortly.

“Our objective is to do a complete recycling center. We’re going to be doing tire recycling, green waste recycling, e-waste recycling and then construction and demolition (C&D) recycling, as well,” Geiter Done President Michael Honer Jr. told the New York-based newspaper. “We’re trying to get anything we can possibly get out of landfill out of the landfill.”

Honer says his company has been driving to North Country to pick up loads of tires from DANC, among other items, and hauling them back to Buffalo for processing. The new facility will provide a cost-saving recycling option closer to home.

“For our normal pickups, we go almost to Albany anyway, so with this, our objective is to make it easier to manage the whole state. It was getting harder and harder to do from Buffalo,” Honer says.

Once the facility is operational, materials the company hauls from Syracuse will be brought to Harrisville, rather than Buffalo. Geiter Done will supply its services to large producers of hard-to-recycle materials as well as municipalities and individuals.

The company also has plans to introduce mattress and carpet recycling, at the request of DANC.

The tires the company processes will be sold for use in tire-derived aggregate or tire-derived fuel, Honer says. As for the mattresses and box springs, any metal or wood will be removed and recycled, and soft material will be broken down into “fluff” to be resold. The facility also will accept green waste, such as tree debris, that will be used in mulch or compost material.

According to DANC officials, the facility is a more financially viable option than the current transfer station.

“We wanted somebody that aligned with our goals of environmental stewardship and recycling. That’s part of what we wanted to achieve,” DANC Communications Director Laurie Marr tells the Watertown Daily Times.

The last load of recyclables from St. Lawrence County left the Harrisville center at the end of December, Marr says. Some of the equipment previously used at the transfer station, including its compactor and scales, have been sent to the county’s Ogdensburg Transfer Station.

Honer expects to move into the building by the end of February and to be up and running by summer.