County Owned Recycling and Energy Center

On December 31, 2015, the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Board, formally known as the Ramsey/Washington County Resource Recovery Board, took a significant step towards improving the environment and achieving their common vision of increasing recycling and gaining the most value out of trash by purchasing the Resource Recovery Technologies Facility. The facility, now named the Recycling & Energy Center (R&E Center), shreds waste to create fuel for energy. 

Owning the R&E Center opens the door for continued and new environmentally friendly waste management opportunities, including managing trash as a resource. To help reach Minnesota’s goal of 75% recycling by 2030, the R&E Board plans on investing in a sophisticated, new sorting mechanism at the R&E Center, called mixed-waste processing. This system allows for food waste and high-value recyclables to be sorted out of the trash received at the R&E Center. The organic waste would then be available for anaerobic digestion or composting, creating biofuels and compost. If implemented, mixed-waste processing will create new jobs at the facility.
An important next step in the future of resource management in the East Metro is the completion of a waste designation plan. Under the law the counties can direct trash to be delivered to a processing facility. The counties are preparing a designation plan to be submitted for state approval. Updates about this process can be found by visitingwww.morevaluelesstrash.com.
​(Reprinted from Green Ramsey newsletter...)