Birmingham Recycling & Recovery

Birmingham Recycling & Recovery LLC (BRR) is a materials recovery facility located at 9 41st Street South in Avondale. The Avondale facility serves as the destination for everything picked up by the Birmingham Department of Public Works during scheduled curbside recycling pick-up days, as well as from every other municipality with curbside collection in the Birmingham area.

The Alabama Environmental Council also delivered recyclables collected at its Community Recycling & Resource Center, except for glass, to Birmingham Recycling & Recovery.

In 2007 the company was involved in a matter before the National Labor Relations Board after employees represented by United Steelworkers International Union Local No. 200 complained of refusal to bargain, self-dealing, and coercion with regard to its labor contract. In October 2010 the Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service responded to a minor fire at Birmingham Recycle & Recovery

In 2011 the plant was acquired by CellMark AB of Gothenburg, Sweden as part of its South Norwalk, Connecticut-based recycling division. CellMark installed a mechanized, single-stream processing system at the facility. Joe D'Errico, a cousin of Division vice-president Jimmy D'Errico, was employed as general manager. At that time, the facility paid $55 per ton for recyclables delivered to the plant. By June 2013 that rate had been lowered to $5 per ton. In September 2015 the company began charging for deliveries instead of paying for them, beginning with a fee of $15 per ton.

In 2017 the Chinese government implemented a policy sharply reducing the amount of bulk recyclables that could be imported to that country and setting higher standards for the materials it would accept. The move significantly affected the market for recyclables and imperiled the economics of collecting from households. In March of that year BRR doubled its fees to $30 per ton. In October 2019 it went up to $65 per ton, with an extra $50 fine for loads that the company judged to be contaminated. Santek Waste Services, which collected garbage and curbside recycling for the City of Hoover, began hauling more loads to landfills and fewer to BRR even as local participation in curbside recycling increased.

In 2018 the plant reported that it received about 3,000 tons of recyclables each month, of which a little more than half was from commercial sources and the remainder from residential collections.

In 2019 manager Chris Bartlett complained that as much as 37% of the materials collected and delivered to the facility were non-recyclable, meaning that the company sent 500 to 700 tons of waste to area landfills each month. In response, Hoover City Council member Casey Middlebrooks organized an "Inter-City Recycling Challenge" between Homewood, Mountain Brook, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mulga and Tarrant to see which city could lower its rate of "contamination" to most.

Over the next few years large piles of accumulated materials built up at the facility. A major fire broke out in the metal building adjoining 41st Street on the evening of May 3, 2023. The fire was mostly contained to that building, used for storage and the facility resumed most of its operations by May 30. Birmingham's curbside recycling program resumed on June 7.

References

• Giltenan, Ed (July 8, 1981) "Two cousins pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges they plotted..." UPI
• Norris, Toraine (October 14, 2010) "Birmingham firefighters respond to fire at Birmingham Recycling & Recovery." The Birmingham News
• Featherson, Emily (April 23, 2018) "Residents urged to be mindful of guidelines as recycling issues rise." Vestavia Voice
• Chandler, Sam (November 15, 2019) "Councilors aim to reduce recycling contamination." The Homewood Star
• Anderson, Jon (November 19, 2019) "Recycling conundrum: Santek took recyclables to landfill amid rising costs, contamination" Hoover Sun
• Pia, Brian (December 17, 2019) "Many Birmingham area residents are trying to recycle the wrong things" abc3340.com
• Robinson, Carol (May 3, 2023) "Firefighters battling massive blaze at Birmingham recycling business." AL.com
• Sager, Julia (June 6, 2023) "Curbside recycling pickup set to resume in Birmingham on June 7." Bham Now

External links

• Birmingham Recycling & Recovery on Facebook.com
• Recycling Facilities at Cellmark.com