If all goes as planned, Falls Township will be the first of five sites across the U.S. to house a post-consumer and post-industrial waste separation facility.
Representatives from Continuus Materials, LLC discussed with the board its plan to construct a plant in Falls Township that would employ 100 people once operational, tentatively in October 2022. The project would also add approximately 340 construction jobs during buildout, which is projected to begin in May 2021 and continue through October 2022.
The facility is planned for a roughly 10-acre property owned by Waste Management on New Ford Mill Road. Continuus Materials would use the latest technology “to pull plastic and paper out of the waste stream” and transform it into high-performance cover boards for commercial roofing applications, according to Continuus Materials Senior Vice President Allan Bradshaw.
“It literally is the garbage bag that you put in the trash can,” he said. “The vast majority of that paper and plastic is recoverable, completely without a human hand touching it.”
The process in place at Continuus Materials’ plant in Des Moines, Iowa recovers 25 percent of waste for use in Everboards. The rest will be conveyed into trucks and transported to the landfill.
The company’s Everboard roof cover has a 20-year life, Bradshaw said, noting that boards can be then brought back to the plant, ground up and reused to make new boards.
Waste Management sees 25 to 55 trucks per hour at its landfill, Bradshaw said. Once the Continuus Materials facility is operational, the company would “divert” four to six trucks per hour for a total of 19 to 22 trucks per day during a 12-hour shipping window.
“Just diverting trucks that are already on their way to the landfill makes sense,” Supervisors Chairman Jeff Dence said.
Continuus Materials attorney Tom Jennings said the facility would not impact landfill tipping or host fees paid to the township. For 2021, Waste Management’s host fees are estimated at $18 million.
Since the processing results in “very low” emissions, emission control technology is not needed, Bradshaw said. The company uses heat and cool only in the process and does not use water, or chemicals, he said.
The Supervisors took no action on Monday. Once Continuus Materials submits a land development application, the board can undertake a formal review and consider granting approval to construct the facility.
