New recycling processing facility to service Fresno County

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Mid Valley Disposal, located in Southwest Fresno, held a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday. Owners say they more than doubled their processing abilities at 35 tons per hour.

Mid Valley Disposal serves 28 communities in Kings, Fresno and Madera counties. Workers separate everything from paper, plastic, aluminum and cardboard.

"From here we separate it into different commodity types, and then we consolidate it into bails. We put it on shipping containers and we send it to the open markets. And we sell the material to Asian markets, domestic markets. And then the manufacturers process it, and it comes back in all kinds of different stuff -- water bottles, cardboard boxes. They can use a cardboard box 10 times." said Joe Calpakoff, Owner And President.

Currently, about 50-percent of Fresno recycles, which is the same as the statewide average. However California has set a goal to hit 75 -percent by the year 2020.

Calpakoff says it's facilities like this that can help reach that number.