Waste Management Unveils WM Recycle Education Station Tampa Bay

Company Opens Education Center on Earth Day to Teach Students the Importance of Recycling

Waste Management unveiled its new WM Recycle Education Station Tampa Bay on Earth Day, Monday, April 22.  Fourth grade students from Seminole Elementary School participated in the first tour of the recycling education center and a ribbon cutting ceremony with City of Seminole officials.

Waste Management built the WM Recycle Education Station Tampa Bay on-site at its WM Recycle Tampa single-stream recycling facility to educate customers, community leaders, school students and interested groups on its recycling operations.  Designed by the Environmental Education Exchange of Tucson, the Education Station features multiple videos, wall graphics, and displays of recyclable materials and final recycled products to educate individuals on the recycling process, its environmental benefits and to encourage more recycling efforts.

“We’re very pleased to welcome City of Seminole officials and students from Seminole Elementary School to celebrate the opening of our new WM Recycle Education Station Tampa Bay,” said Dawn McCormick, Community Affairs Manager for Waste Management.  “This education center demonstrates our commitment to promote and encourage greater recycling at home, at work and at school.”

Waste Management has 95 Material Recovery Facilities nationwide, including WM Recycle Tampa.  The residential and commercial single-stream facility, which opened in 2012, processes 35 tons of recyclables per hour with an annual capacity of more than 130,000 tons.

The 68,000 square-foot, $26 million facility was designed and constructed using sustainable building techniques and has been LEED Silver Certified by U.S. Green Building Council.  It features state of the art technology and processing equipment and accepts Cardboard, Newspaper and Mixed Paper, Tin and Ferrous Metals, Aluminum, Aseptic containers (such as juice boxes), Glass, and plastics including PET (water and sports drink bottles), colored and natural HDPE bottles and jugs, and other plastics numbered 3-7.  The facility processes recyclables for counties and cities throughout the region including the City of Seminole.

The facility employs approximately 100 workers on two shifts.  The facility’s location is particularly important, since its proximity to the Port of Tampa facilitates the shipment of recycled materials to customers worldwide.

On the tour of the WM Recycle Education Station, students learned how materials such as cardboard, newspaper, metal, glass and plastic jugs are recycled through the use of state-of-the-art technology including optical scanners, rare earth magnets and an eddy current that  together systematically sort recyclables for shipping worldwide.

Waste Management is one of the nation’s leading environmental services provider with more than 20 million municipal, commercial and industrial customers.  As North America’s largest residential recycler, Waste Management is committed to making sure we extract the value from the materials we manage and that “waste no longer goes to waste.”  Last year, the company recycled 9 Million tons of material with a goal to increase that amount to 20 Million tons by 2020.

About Waste Management

Waste Management, Inc., based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. It is also one of the largest residential recycler and a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. The company’s customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America. To learn more information about Waste Management visit www.wm.com.