WastAway ends local garbage contract-Company to focus on selling technology

WastAway Services, a division of Bouldin Corp., has not renewed its contract with the county to recycle its household waste. As a result, the Warren County Commission passed a resolution at its meeting Monday to allow County Executive John Pelham to enter into a solid waste agreement with Southern Central. WastAway, which has made a business decision to reduce its production, had been paying Southern Central for some time to handle a portion of the county’s garbage. As a result, both WastAway and county officials decided it would be more efficient for the county to enter into a direct agreement with Southern Central, which has agreed to provide sufficient household garbage to WastAway for the company to operate its process as needed. WastAway CEO Mark Brown said the change is a good move financially for both the county and WastAway. ‘WastAway has been recycling Warren County’s municipal solid waste for five years at a cost that exceeded the $40 per ton tipping fees we’ve been receiving,’ Brown said. ‘Working together during that time, Warren County and WastAway have proven the commercial viability and reliability of the technology.’ Brown says the reason for the reduction is WastAway wants to concentrate on the installation of a system the company sold to Aruba, and marketing the system to other potential purchasers, rather than the recycling process. ‘Over the next year, WastAway intends to reduce the volume of materials processed in our Morrison facility as we continue R&D on higher value applications for the fluff we produce.’ Brown says the change was mutually agreed upon by all three parties involved. Brown also noted a big part of the original WastAway agreement was the high level of recycling it provided for state mandates, and reported the company would still be able to help the county meet those standards. ‘We have been a party in the negotiations with Mr. Pelham, the Health and Welfare Committee and Southern Central in finding a local solution to the county’s municipal solid waste needs,’ Brown said. ‘And under the new contract, we will work with Southern Central to help the county meet its minimum recycling mandates by the state.’ Brown says all the same parties are involved, just in different roles ‘We were the prime contractor in the past,’ Brown said, ‘and what we couldn’t take Southern Central handled. Now we’ll just reverse the roles. Southern Central will be the prime contractor and they will provide the waste we need either to help the county reach its recycling mandates, or what we need for our R&D efforts.’ Brown says he has spent time recently in Aruba working on hiring a contractor to construct a building for the installation of a system the company has sold to the island nation. ‘Once there’s a building constructed then we will ship the equipment down and install it,’ Brown said. ‘Per our negotiations last week, that will be completed by March 17 of 2009.’ Though Aruba is the only contract for a WastAway system, Brown says strong research and development and marketing is under way. ‘We have several systems in various stages of negotiations,’ Brown said.