UPDATE: Rockland County Opens MRF

WORLD WASTES STAFF

RAMAPO, N.Y. - The Rockland County Solid Waste Management Authority (RCSWMA), has opened a new material recovery facility (MRF) as part of an effort to enhance Rockland County, N.Y.'s recycling capabilities.

The 30,625 square-foot facility can process more than 53,000 tons of plastic, glass, various metals and all types of paper products per year, and more than 205 tons of material per day.

Operated by Waste Manage-ment of New York, Hillburn, the MRF is under contract to RCSWMA. All five towns in Rockland County and the villages of Airmont, Chestnut Ridge, Haverstraw, Hillburn, Montebello, New Hempstead, Spring Valley and Suffern have committed to using the facility, which also houses a visitors' gallery, amphitheater and educational area.

Also on display at the MRF are the winning entries of RCSWMA's recycling art contest. In January 1998, county students in kindergarten through grade 12 were invited to submit artwork that conveyed a "reduce, reuse and recycle" message and used recyclable materials.

RCSWMA received more than 100 entries in the form of posters, sculptures and paintings. Twenty-one students were named winners, and they received a class ice cream party and had trees planted at their schools in their honor.

The contest was the first element of a comprehensive recycling education program that RCSWMA will launch during in 1999.

People STS Consultants Ltd., Vernon Hills, Ill., has appointed two new senior staff members in its Lansing, Mich., regional office. Paul W. Lambert will oversee STS's environmental consulting services statewide, and Larry L. Swihart, a senior engineer, will be responsible for all areas of client development in Michigan.

David A. Cunningham has been named president and CEO for Mobile Computing Corp., Toronto.

Jacqueline Wolfe has been named director of expositions for Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Industry Associations' annual WasteExpo trade show.

Recycling Watch: Food and Consumer Products

* Each year, The Coca-Cola Company spends more than $2 billion in recycled content materials and supplies. Its aluminum cans contain an average of 54 percent post-consumer aluminum. By shaving off about 4 millimeters of its aluminum cans' necks, the company reduced aluminum use by an estimated 20,000 tons annually.

* All of Altristra Corp.'s Ball and Ker glass products are produced using recycled materials and are recyclable, as is its product packaging.

* Warer-Lambert's product display boxes and corrugated shipping containers used for its Bubblicious, Chiclets, Cinn-A-Burst, Dentyne, Fruit-A-Burst, Mint-A-Burst and Trident chewing gums use 75 percent recycled paper. And, by replacing the paper overwrap and glass containers used for Listerine Antiseptic Mouthwash's packaging with polyethylene terepthalate (PET) plastic containers, the company saves 20 million pounds of packaging annually.

* H.J. Heinz packages Ore-Ida french fries in 10 percent less stretchwrap and ships 20 percent less corrugated fiberboard than it did three years ago.

* Ajinomoto U.S.S. previously shipped monosodium glutamate in virgin plastic bags. Now, it uses 50-pound recycled bags.

People Jaime Martinez Mondragin has been named general director of ERM's Mexican operations based in Mexico City. John A. DeFilippi, CEO of ERM's Northeastern operations in Woodbury, N.Y., has been named president of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, Annapolis, Md.

Len Rodman has been named CEO and chairman of Black and Veatch's North America Division of the Infrastructure Business, Kansas City, Mo.

Bill Gordon has been named inside sales/used sales representative for Randolph, Ohio-based East Manufacturing Corp.'s heavy duty aluminum trailer and truck accessory line.