Ocean County will spend $3.1 million upgrading facilities at its Northern Recycling Center in Lakewood, said Ernest J. Kuhlwein Jr., director of the Department of Solid Waste Management.
The county’s freeholders awarded a contract in that amount to Benjamin R. Harvey Co. Inc. of Ocean Township, Monmouth County.
Kuhlwein said the work includes replacing the building where tires, oil and anti-freeze are received for recycling. The building being replaced “came with the site,’’ when the county took it over, he explained.
A building will be added for employees and supervisors. Kulhwein said an equipment wash pad will also be added.
The use of the site will also be made safer, he said. People now using the recycling facilities - which are open around the clock - now get to and from them using New Hampshire Avenue.
The location of the exit from that area will be shifted to Oberlin Avenue, where there is a traffic light at New Hampshire Avenue, with the construction of a new exit road.
The Northern Recycling Center is the heart of the county’s recycling strategy, with things that will be reused readied for market at the massive materials processing center.
