One the largest recycling collection centers in Alabama says it will partially reopen on Monday after a fire destroyed one of its warehouse buildings last week.
Birmingham Recycling and Recovery will begin accepting drop-off materials from the public as well as commercial loads on Monday at its Avondale location on 41st Street South.
Sales Manager Leigh Shaffer said that while the fire totally destroyed the warehouse, the more important sorting and baling equipment was not damaged. That’s why the center will be able to resume operations quickly.
“We had a fire and that was scary, but it could have been much worse,” Shaffer said. “Our whole facility didn’t burn. It was a warehouse and not the plant.”
Shaffer said the plant will not take mixed curbside recycling from Birmingham and 14 other municipalities for now, until the facility gets fully up and running. They hope to be able to resume accepting those materials soon, but no specific time frame has been given.
Birmingham Recycling and Recovery is the largest recycling collection center in the Birmingham area. It accepts recycling collections from the city of Birmingham as well as Shelby County, Irondale, Pleasant Grove, Pinson, Center Point, Oneonta, Jacksonville, Helena, Gardendale, Chelsea, Alabaster, Midfield, Talladega, and Leeds. The center also takes recyclable paper, plastics, cans and more from commercial loads.
Birmingham collects residential recycling on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. The city announced Saturday that it will not collect recyclables on May 17 as the recycling center is not yet ready. Birmingham residents can still use the drop-off bins at the center beginning Monday.
The recycling center is also a popular spot for Birmingham area residents who live in apartments or condo buildings to drop off their own recyclables if they do not have curbside collections.
The fire at the warehouse started around 9:45 p.m. on May 3, with Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service responding to a massive blaze around 10 p.m. By the next morning, the still-smoldering structure’s roof had collapsed and firefighters continued to put out the last embers.
Shaffer said crews began demolition on the warehouse on May 5. The building was used to store baled material such as cardboard and plastic before it was shipped off to paper mills or plastics recycling plants.
The metal from the demolished warehouse will be recycled, but the remaining material inside the warehouse had to be sent to a landfill.
Alabama is home to some of the largest recycling facilities in the world, including KW Plastics in Troy, the world’s largest plastics recycler, and Constellium in Muscle Shoals, a major aluminum recycler that employs about 1,200 people.
However, many Alabama communities struggle to gather, sort and deliver their own recyclables to these large facilities, often operating at a loss for the city or county.
As one of the largest collection centers in Alabama, Birmingham Recycling and Recovery helps the state reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills.