After the exam yesterday, I planned a tour with Alachua County Public Works to visit the Leveda Brown Environmental Park. I took the drive out to the facility, located at 5115 N.E. 63rd Ave. Gainesville, Florida, about a 20 minute drive from campus. This is also the web site information: Leveda Brown Environmental Park
I arrived early so sat in the waiting room and waited for someone to arrive to give me the tour of the facility. Upon arrival, Alachua County provided me with a eco-friendly Toyota Prius.
I originally thought the tour would be boring and didn't think it would interest me at all, but to my surprise I actually enjoyed the tour. Below is an aerial view of the facilities and the information and facts that I gathered along the tour. The numbers label the facilities on the site.
1. Entrance
2. Guest parking & office
3. Weigh Station
4. Yard waste storage and large item storage
5. Wet Retention pond
6. Disposal/Sorting center
7. Staging area for trucks
8. Solar Panels
9. Recycling center
10. Hazardous waste center
1. Entrance
The park is located at located at 5115 N.E. 63rd Ave. Gainesville, Florida, about a 20 minute drive from campus. The entrance provides access to all the facilities mentioned below.
2. Guest Parking and Office
When entering the facility, all guest taking a tour or attending meetings must wait at the office for their party to arrive. the Leveda Brown Environmental Park gives tours and field trips to anybody who would like to visit the park and obtain more information about their facilities.
3. Weigh Station
Upon entering the park, before dumping any material, one has to go to the weigh station to get their vehicle weighed. When leaving the park, the vehicle has to get weighed again and an associated fee is assessed along with the amount of weight that was dropped off at the facility.
4. Yard waste storage and large item storage
In this area, people can drop off old refrigerators, up to 2 tires, scrap metal (not pictured) and yard debris and wooden pallets (not pictured). All of these items are recycled and the yard debris and pallets are then turned into compost which is available to Alachua County residents for no charge.
5. Wet Retention pond
The wet retention pond was designed to retain water and resemble a natural wetland area. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the pond, but there are natural wetland vegetation, turtles, alligators and other animals that one may see in a "swampy" area.
6. Disposal/Sorting center
This is the first time the tour guide has ever seen this area cleaned without any trash on the floor. However, this area is where the garbage is dumped from the large trucks and residents of Alachua County. Once there is a lot of garbage there, a front loader pushes the garbage into large dump trucks that transfer the waste to other landfills around Florida.
This area is where the large trucks stage for the garbage to be loaded in the containers. The building pictured is the disposal/sorting area. The garbage is pushed into "holes" in the floor above and hauled to other landfills around Florida.
8. Solar Panels
Although the solar panels do not directly help the Leveda Brown Environmental Park, the panels are tied into GRU's electric grid providing energy to Alachua County residents. The system consists of 128, 205 watt panels.
9. Recycling Center
The recycling area is where all recyclable materials go to get hand sorted. Materials that are recycled in the orange and blue boxes provided by GRU are sorted here, items include plastic bottles, paper, cardboard boxes, glass, cans. milk and juice cartons, and the list goes on.
10. Hazardous waste center
I thought the hazardous waste facility was the most interested tour the Leveda Brown Park has available. In this facility, they recycle used cooking oil from local restaurants and homes to convert the oil into biodiesel. They then run their entire facility from a generator powered by the bio diesel they produce. The facility also recycles old computers, televisions, paints, light bulbs, oil, as well as medical waste. The facility even has a mobile collection trailer which can pick up hazardous waste is one is unable to move the waste themselves.
Overall, I actually enjoyed the tour and thought that it was educational. A lot of terms and ideas that we have learned in BCN1582 were applied at the facility and I learned quite a bit about Alachua County's waste and recycling process.
