Waste Management of Spokane, a subsidiary of Houston-based Waste Management Inc., has started work on its $18 million recycling facility on the West Plains that will be more than a third larger than originally planned.

The company is completing site work and footings and recently obtained a building permit to erect a 62,000-square-foot structure on an 8-acre site at 2902 S. Geiger Blvd., says Ken Gimpel, municipal waste manager at Waste Management of Spokane.

The plant, to be constructed in the Spokane International Airport Business Park, just north of the waste-to-energy plant, will be called the Spokane Materials & Recycling Technology Center. It will have 40 to 50 employees and process 100,000 tons of recyclables a year at full capacity, Gimpel says.

The earlier plan for the SMART Center included a 45,000-square-foot facility and a $12 million capital investment.

The scope of the project was expanded to be capable of handling recyclable material from beyond Spokane County, including throughout Eastern Washington, North Idaho, western Montana, and possibly parts of the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, Gimpel says.

Providence, R.I.-based Gilbane Building Co. is the contractor on the project, and Melville, N.Y.-based RRT Design & Construction is providing engineering services.

Spokane-area subcontractors on the project include Divcon Inc., Great Northern Masonry Co., James W. Elmer Construction Co., the Spokane office of McKinstry Co., Sturm Heating Inc., Power City Electric Inc., and Overhead Door of Spokane-Coeur d'Alene, Gimpel says.

The SMART Center is scheduled to be operational on Oct. 1.

Separately, Waste Management also plans to invest $8.5 million in 20 trucks that will run on compressed natural gas, and the infrastructure to fuel them at its Spokane Valley operations center, at 11321 E. Indiana, Gimpel says.

Waste Management, working with the city of Spokane and the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System, plans to implement a uniform single-stream curbside recycling collection system countywide beginning next fall.

The city of Spokane currently operates its own recyclable collection service, and Waste Management provides recycling services to 55,000 households in Spokane Valley, Millwood, Liberty Lake, Deer Park, and portions of unincorporated Spokane County.

The single-stream program will accept recyclable products that aren't collected in the current curbside recycling systems, such as most paper products, most plastics, and scrap metals, such as pots and pans, foil, and pie tins.

The current system collects limited plastics, cardboard, aluminum, steel, batteries, and glass.

Waste Management anticipates the volume of recyclables collected in Spokane County will increase by at least 40 percent once the single-stream system is in place, Gimpel says. Larger wheeled carts will replace the picnic cooler-sized recycle bins currently in use in the city of Spokane, he says.

Sorting will be done at the SMART Center rather than at the point of collection, Gimpel says.

Recyclable materials will be separated through a combination of manual sorting, vacuum pipes, fans, conveyer belts, crushers, magnetic currents, and gravity. After sorting, the materials will be transported to appropriate mills and manufacturers for further processing.