MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A little more than three years after opening its doors, Entsorga has temporarily closed them.
“On April 4th, they sent a letter saying that they would be temporarily closing. They were doing some sort of financial review,” according to Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority Chair Clint Hogbin, who said that’s basically what he knows, as well.
“They are stressing that this is temporary, but we don’t whether that means one month, three months – we don’t know what that means.”
Entsorga WV is a waste-to-fuel operation that turns household trash into fuel for use by industry.
Hogbin said the company is another method of keeping waste materials out of landfills.
The company has been in operation in the Panhandle since 2019.
Its website touts the Martinsburg facility as “the nation’s first resource recovery facility in the United States to utilize a mechanical biological treatment process. The facility recovers biomass, plastics, and other carbon-based materials from the mixed municipal solid waste (MSW) stream and Commercial & Industrial (C&I) non-hazardous secondary materials and converts them into an EPA-recognized renewable fuel. During the process recyclable commodities such as metals are extracted and recovered in conjunction with Berkeley County’s current recycling program.”
That “Solid Recovered Fuel” can be used by large energy users and co-processing facilities like cement manufacturers and steel mills as a cost-effective alternative or supplement to fossil fuels.
The plant in Berkeley County has the capacity to process 110,000 tons of MSW/C&I waste and provide approximately 45,000 tons of “high-calorific value SRF” to a nearby cement plant, according to Entsorga’s website.
The Panhandle News Network has reached out to Entsorga for comment.