Development News From Southwest Indiana

Consolidated Recycling to grow
By Kevin Koelling, Managing Editor, Perry County News, 6/17/05
TROY - A nearly $1 million expansion of Troy's Consolidated Recycling plant will lead to the creation of approximately 10 new jobs over the next couple of years and increased business for the Hoosier Southern Railroad.

Dave Carson, who co-owns Consolidated Recycling with his brother, Paul, said Friday the company has entered into an agreement with Inland Technologies International Ltd. of Truro, Nova Scotia to process airplane-wing de-icer fluids. Located in the Tell City Industrial Park north of Troy, Consolidated Recycling is the largest antifreeze recycler in the continental United States, he said, processing for resale more than six million gallons annually.

"We have always done de-icer," Carson said. "We process probably one million gallons a year. This expansion will triple that."

Under the new agreement, he explained, facilities will be constructed to house and manage de-icing fluids arriving from all over the country, to be recycled for reuse. The company will add three 250,000-gallon storage tanks and add a three-rail-car spur to its existing 14-car spur. "We hope to be up and operational by October," Carson said.

Dick Neumann, vice president and chief executive officer for the Perry County Port Authority-Hoosier Southern Railroad, said at a regular board-of-directors meeting the expansion will mean 150 to 250 additional railcars per year, and suggested the rail-port agency contribute up to $20,000 to the work.

He also said he checked with the Indiana Department of Transportation to see if its Industrial Rail Service Fund could be used for the work, and found "they'll consider funding 50 percent," of a proposed $100,000 cost to add the spur, but no official response would come until after July 1. The funds can go as grants or loans to short-line railroads or as grants to port authorities' rail infrastructure work.

The board approved Neumann's $20,000 recommendation.

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