WastAway systemconverts solid waste to "fluff," which can be pressed into a building product.

Alton Box Board container plant closed in 1998. The new waste- recycling facility could begin operation this year.

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Local investors plan to launch an innovative waste-recycling operation on the site of the old Alton Box Board paper container plant in the citys industrial corridor.

Green Investment Group Inc. purchased the 240-acre site last month from Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. of Clayton. The plant has been closed since November 1998.

The investment group plans to begin a recycling operation using a process developed and marketed by WastAway Services of McMinnville, Tenn., said Ray Stillwell, president of the investment group. Stillwell said the facility could begin operation this year.

The WastAway system accepts unsorted municipal solid waste, which is ground, shredded and heated under high pressure. Metals are extracted for recycling.

The process takes 20 to 30 minutes and produces something the company calls fluff, which can be used by nurseries and gardeners as a soil enhancer or pressed into a dense building product for benches or decking. Stillwell said the product is nontoxic.

And nothing goes to a landfill, he said.

A WastAway system can process about 120 tons of waste -- 10 to 12 truckloads -- per day. Thats only a tiny fraction of the waste generated in the region, but Stillwell says the system is expandable.

He said it may also be possible that the processed waste could be used as an alternative energy source, but that is still in the research stages.

With the first phase in full operation, the facility would employ 30 to 40 people, Stillwell said.

Stillwell said the investment group wanted to use the property for recycling and alternative-energy ventures, so an opportunity to combine those two pursuits would be highly appealing. The site has about 400,000 square feet of industrial and office space, rail tracks, water wells, wastewater treatment and other infrastructure.

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Alton Mayor Don Sandidge said he would welcome the recycling operation -- and other environmentally friendly projects the investors want to undertake at the former Box Board site.

"I'd love to see it come back," he said. "It would be great for the city to get that idle land back into use with good job opportunities."

Stillwell said the property had no big environmental problems -- unlike the Alton Steel site, where extensive and expensive remediation was required. Paperboard operations are less harmful than steel production, he said, and Smurfit-Stone "shut down the plant in a responsible way."

The operation will need permits from the city and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

Stillwell said other members of the investment group preferred to remain in the background, and he would not identify them. He said purchase of the property was financed with the help of Meridian Bank and the Bank of Calhoun County.