WWRA Receives Grants for a Robot and Contamination Study

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By Shawn Personke, WWRA

Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority (WWRA) was awarded two environmental improvement grants from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and the Recycling Partnership.

The first grant provided $458,370 to purchase robotic sorting equipment and a new truck to increase processing and collection capacity. The new sorting equipment doubles the capacity for sorting plastics.

Marc Williams, WWRA facility manager, said that the sorting robot has improved on its accuracy picks per minute over the past month.

“It also has the ability to sort HDPE, NAT, HDPE, MC, aluminum cans, and PET at the same time,” Williams added. “Anything that is missed is picked out manually.”

The second was a $27,382 Michigan Recycling Quality Improvement grant that focuses on decreasing contamination of recyclables collected at the WWRA’s eight bin sites and curbside recycling in the City of Chelsea.

Williams said that the WWRA will perform an audit to find the current contamination rate and what items are causing contamination. The grant also covers educating the public on what should not be recycled.

“After the education outreach is complete, we’ll be able to conduct another audit to see if our contamination rate has been reduced.”

Williams said both he and the WWRA Board are pleased to have the opportunity to improve recycling.

“This grant allows us to continue improving our commitment to environmental sustainability while recognizing the effort in clean recycling throughout Washtenaw County,” he added.

Check out the sorting robot in action from WWRA's Facebook page.

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Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority (WWRA) is a not-for-profit partnership of and subsidized by five municipalities (Townships of Dexter, Lyndon, Manchester and Lima, and the City of Chelsea) working together to find alternative ways to handle waste and promote reducing, reusing, and recycling. The townships are served by convenient drop-off centers while the City of Chelsea has weekly curbside recycling pick up. For more information, visit www.WWRArecycles.org.

Photo: WWRA Facebook

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