After opening back in 2019, Repower South (RPS) was going to be a fresh start for the Berkeley County Landfill and the county’s diminished recycling program. To recycle, all that residents had to do was put their trash can at the curb and RPS would take care of the rest.
Once things got going, the county would get a cut of the money on what RPS sells.
Now, more than two years into the win-win deal, the success of the relationship is a little murky. The global economy may have something to do with it.
Repower South’s commodity is trash — or what’s in it. The company uses proprietary technology that includes sensors, conveyors and jets of air to quickly sort, stack or crush items like plastic bottles, metal cans, cardboard and paper. The items are then sold and shipped out to be recycled.
The company can also do something with the trash that can’t be recycled. The business model pitched to the county highlighted the fact that RPS can take the non-recyclable papers and plastics and manufacture that into an engineered fuel that works as a replacement for coal.
In total, with the replacement fuel and the recycling, RPS said almost 70 percent of trash will be given another purpose and the rest will stay at the landfill off Highway 52.
The deal between the two said the county would receive a 12-percent cut of the commodity sales per quarter, once RPS sales exceed $1.4 million. The same goes with the proprietary manufactured fuel. The county gets a 12-percent cut of that too, once sales exceed $1.2 million.
In 2018, the company leased land from the county and invested $40 million into the county landfill. RPS built a 100,000-square-foot facility and installed its massive machinery. It officially started up in March of 2019. All that Berkeley County has to do is provide 120,000 tons of trash every year. So how are things going?
Twice in recent weeks, Repower South was supposed to publicly address council members on its fiscal impact and progress, and both times it has been postponed.
The most recent postponement, the council meeting agenda said, involved an executive session, regarding contractual matters with the company.
Berkeley County Council’s Tommy Newell, who chairs the Public Utilities Committee, said he could not comment on the relationship with the company, good or bad. He said things regarding Repower South are being handled in executive session, and he’ll know more in the weeks ahead.
Repower South officials say the company is doing what was promised, although there are some things that are out of their control.
“Repower and the county have a great working relationship. We’re providing our services to the community,” said co-founder and CEO Brian Gilhuly.
Gilhuly said the county is providing its 120,000 tons' worth of trash every year to be sorted. But the Berkeley County site hasn’t reached the point where 70 percent of items are being repurposed.
“No. I wouldn’t say ... we’ve experienced quite that high of level of diversion,” said Gilhuly. “That’s been for a variety of different factors, some, you know, associated with markets and others with just the waste stream.”
In turn he said, there hasn’t been enough produced or earned yet to get Berkeley County the cut of money they are to receive from the operation. But the agreement, he said, was about the strength of the market, not the amount repurposed.
“That’s largely been driven by, you know, the commodity market,” Gilhuly said. “The whole purpose of the revenue share was that when and/or if commodity prices were at some high marks, the county would participate in that, and when the recycling commodity prices were at low marks, they would not.”
County officials won’t confirm yet whether its decision to get on board with Repower South will pay off over the long term. In the meantime, there is little risk to the taxpayer. RPS leases the land and covered the cost of its facility. And before Repower South, Berkeley County didn’t have a recycling program.
Gilhuly said since RPS started, 70 million pounds of material have been recycled for Berkeley County. The amount includes 125 million cans and roughly 112 million plastic jugs and bottles.
Status pending on Berkeley County's investment in recycling - Berkeley Independent
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