It’s not just nuclear weapons that the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility is recycling for an alternate purpose. The facility – more accurately, those who are building it – are making an effort to repurpose lumber that otherwise would be chucked into a landfill.
Scrap lumber from construction of the MOX facility will be reused as classroom materials for students in carpentry training programs at area schools in South Carolina and Georgia.
Shaw AREVA MOX Services, which is building the facility at the Savannah River Site, is donating the lumber and transporting it to several education centers weekly.
“This is a partnership that benefits everyone – area schools, the environment and the MOX project,” said Kelly Trice, president and chief operating officer of Shaw AREVA MOX Services. “The excess wood from our construction site will be reused to train future carpenters while saving us disposal costs. We are continuously seeking every opportunity to save costs and positively impact our environment and our community.”
By recycling the wood, the MOX project could save as much as $50,000 annually in disposal costs and more than 136,000 cubic feet of space in a landfill.
The contractor collaborated with Rick McLeod, executive director of the SRS Community Reuse Organization, to launch the wood donation program.
“We identified some sources we thought would be interested, and (the MOX team) moved beyond that,” McLeod said.