Gov. Evers tours newly renovated Germantown Recycling Facility

GERMANTOWN, Wis. (CBS 58) – WM completed nearly $39 million in upgrades to automate the Germantown Recycle Facility. Governor Tony Evers was there to tour the plant and learn about its improvements.

"These folks are doing the right thing, recycling about 80-90% - that's something, that's a big deal," said Governor Evers.

It's the largest recycle facility in the state, according to the director of operations, Troy Hanson. The plant will scale up to processing 230,000 tons a year, or about a million pounds of recyclables on a daily basis.

Before the upgrade, Germantown Recycle Facility had four optical sorters. Now it has 17, meaning it can sort more than ever before.

"This is a newly renovated, state of the art, single-stream recycling facility, so we look at this as an investment in the sustainable future of Wisconsin," Hanson explained.

Plant Manager John Schultz said they sort 625 tons a day, 90% which is recycled and 10% which goes to the landfill.

After recyclables are sorted and put into finished bales, they go to mills to be repurposed.

"Plastic bottle, soda bottle or water bottle is actually remanufactured into another water bottle or manufactured and used as a component of carpet or yarn," said Hanson.

Govenor Evers says he was impressed with the scale of the facility but believes everyone can try harder to protect our environment.

"I encourage people to get a little excited about this because it makes a difference. Earth Day should be every day. It was actually Senator Nelson who created it or helped create it, so it's important to Wisconsin since it originated here," said Evers.

Evers urges Milwaukeeans to look into their municipalities' rules but to learn how to recycle the right way.

"At the end of the day, they can help out, making sure we have a good environment by doing the right thing," said Evers.