Binghampton Development Corporation, a non-profit community development corporation located in Memphis, Tennessee, has received a $50,000 grant from the Foodservice Packaging Institute’s Foam Recycling Coalition to add a foam densifier to its current Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) facility.
Over the last 18 years, the Binghampton Development Corporation has pursued revitalizing the historic Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis through housing and economic development as well as empowerment programs for those in poverty. The organization has cultivated revenue generating programs that focus on employing and educating new skills to neighborhood workers. Their latest endeavor is a development partnership to start recycling hard-to-recycle items that are currently contributing to the blight for many neighborhoods.
New recycling operations will assist in cleaning up neighborhoods for over 350,000 households and bring recycling services to the metro area’s 1.3 million residents. The first phase of the recycling program will begin with tire recycling, with future phases including disassembling and recycling old streetlights and recycling mattresses. These programs are expected to provide job training while recycling materials, including aluminum, copper, plastic, glass, steel and soon, foam polystyrene.
Foam Recycling Coalition funding allows the organization to purchase and install a high-capacity densifier unit to better manage foam recycling collection at its facility. The densifier will allow the facility to accept foam materials, such as foodservice packaging, post-consumer foam packaging and padding, and production scrap from local businesses and residents.
The grant is made possible through contributions to the Foam Recycling Coalition, which focuses exclusively on increased recycling of post-consumer foam polystyrene.
Binghampton Development Corporation is the 22nd grant recipient to receive this funding since 2015.
Published in the February 2022 Edition