MAGNOLIA SPRINGS — A countywide recycling facility could be in operation by the end of next year, saving thousands of tons of waste from landfills and relieving local agencies from having to haul materials out of state.

The county is developing plans for the 60,000-square-foot facility to be built at the Magnolia Landfill in Magnolia Springs, Terri Graham, county solid waste director, said Tuesday, Aug. 16. She said the facility will include automated sorting and should allow the county to expand recycling programs.

"We're trying to recover as many materials as possible," Graham said. "There are several municipalities that already do a curbside program. We would like to expand that to all areas of the county, making sure we incorporate recycling in all the schools and businesses as much as possible. Wherever we can get recycling started, that's where we're going to go."

The county began design work on the facility earlier this year. Graham said officials hope to go out for bid by the end of 2022 and begin construction in early 2023.

"This facility should be up and running by the end of 2023," Graham said. "That is our goal. And we would like to have at least 10,000 tons of recyclable material moved through the facility. We should be able to go up to 40,000 tons of recyclable material without having to add on to that facility. So, we have a lot of room to grow. We'd have to add additional shifts and things like that, but no new equipment."

She said county officials are working to make recycling more attractive for residents and businesses.

"To have a circular economy, to have an integrated solid waste system, recycling is a key component," Graham said. "We offer the drop-off locations, but we've got to make it more of a priority and make it more readily available to the citizens so it's not so cumbersome for them to want to recycle and want to have a more environmentally friendly mechanism."

Graham said the amount of recycling has fluctuated in Baldwin County in recent years. Some centers that take material have closed and COVID-19 slowed collections in some areas.

She said plans for an aluminum plant in Bay Minette announced earlier this year should increase the demand for scrap aluminum, one of the materials recycled by Baldwin County and local municipal programs. Novelis announced plans in May to build the aluminum and rolling mill.

"We were on this journey before Novelis," Graham said. "Now, we've even stepped up the efforts even more because they want all the aluminum that they can get their hands on."

She said finding facilities that will recycle plastic is more difficult, but the market for cardboard is good.

"Cardboard, there's definitely a market for that and we're stepping up operations to pick up cardboard and kind of get that out of the waste stream too," Graham said. "We've purchased two different load trucks and front load boxes so we can deploy those throughout Baldwin County, just for cardboard specifically starting in October."

The county does not recycle glass. Even with the new facility, Graham said officials do not plan to add that service.

"Glass is not an option. It's not on the table. It's very hard to move glass safely and there is no market for glass. They used to have a plant in Atlanta, and they shut that down. The last I heard, the closest place was in Indiana," Graham said.