<< Previous   of   Next >> Enterprise/AMY DAYBERT  (click to enlarge) Brad Bell, operations manager of the Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station, discusses the new features of station on Feb. 18 in Shoreline. Enterprise/AMY DAYBERT  (click to enlarge) Residents unload garbage onto the receiving floor of the Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station while a bulldozer waits to push the debris off the floor to be compacted on Feb. 18. The Enterprise/AMY DAYBERT  (click to enlarge) The Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station opened Saturday, Feb. 16 after a $24 million renovation. It is the first county-owned transfer station built in urban King County Since 1976.

ADVERTISEMENT

CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, News editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

Garbage goes green

By Amy Daybert
Enterprise editor

Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station operating manager Brad Bell said he may work with garbage but it doesn't mean the new facility he works in is smelly.

That's because a de-odorizing, de-mister breaks down compounds from the trash being brought in by waste companies and residents.

"We don't want to smell," Bell said. "One of our environmental and neighbor-friendly things is to make sure we don't make a whole lot of dust, noise, litter, any of that kind of stuff."

The new facility on North 165th Street was known formerly as the First Northeast Station. More than twenty months, $24 million in renovations and several built green steps later, the name was changed to more adequately represent the station and officially reopened on Feb. 16.

Bell said he expects the green building features incorporated into the facility will earn a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold rating -- the highest level or recognition.

"The station was designed to LEED gold specifications," he said. "I believe we'll get that (rating)."

On Feb. 13, Shoreline Mayor Cindy Ryu, Lake Forest Park Mayor Dave Hutchinson, King County Councilman Bob Ferguson and other council members and officials toured the facility.

"It's a state of the art facility," Hutchinson said after the tour.

In fact, the Shoreline station is the first transfer station in the country that is registered with the U.S. Green Building Council.

Outside solar panels on the building are designed to help provide roughly five percent of the building's energy needs. Translucent windows and skylights allow natural light to filter into the building and sensors help regulate how much electrical light is needed. A 3,750-gallon tank holds rainwater that is collected off of the acre rooftop and used for cleaning floors and flushing toilets.

"Every time it rains a tenth of an inch, we get about two days of virtually no use of domestic water," Bell said.

The care and protection of nearby Thorton Creek was also provided for, he added. Any runoff from the site itself is filtered into a detention pond, and vegetation along the creek's buffer helps reduce erosion.

"More than anything else we are an environmental agency," Bell said. "We want to make sure the environment is impacted as little as possible by what we do. This new station will not be impacting the neighbors nearly as much as the old station; they will barely know we're here."

But residents will want to know about the opportunities the station offers, he added. Scrap metal, cell phones and household batteries are all recyclable, along with appliances, clean wood and yard waste. Residents can drop off aluminum cans, cardboard, newspapers, and glass and plastic bottles for no charge at a recycling area outside of the main entrance, while just inside the entrance, a row of recycled truck tires emit nature sounds and a kiosk offers information about the site.

Teaching about recyclables is an ongoing effort, according to Bell. As transfer station operators become settled into their new environment, they will begin trying to sort items from the receiving floor that are recyclable, he said.

"We plan on pulling recyclable material such as scrap metal out of the garbage," Bell said. "Once it gets pushed in that compactor, it's going to the landfill … we didn't have enough room in the smaller facility to start pulling materials out but now we do."

Garbage that does go down the chute, according to Bell, is compacted into loads of 26 tons and sent to the county's landfill in Maple Valley. The Cedar Hills regional landfill is expected to reach its full capacity in 2016 and by that time, King County Solid Waste Division expects to have four more energy-rated stations up and running.

The Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. A fee is charged for some recyclable materials and some items are only accepted in limited quantities. For additional information, contact King County Solid Waste Division at 206-296-4466 or online at www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd.