Environment

Private transfer station gets set to open in Cutchogue

Peconic Recycling and Transfer owners Stan Lomangino (left) and Jon DiVello inside the 42,000 Square foot facility under construction in Cutchogue. All sorting at the facility will be done inside, behind closed doors. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
Peconic Recycling and Transfer owners Stan Lomangino (left) and Jon DiVello inside the 42,000 Square foot facility under construction in Cutchogue. All sorting at the facility will be done inside, behind closed doors. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)

After seven years and nearly $10 million, Peconic Recycling and Transfer Station in Cutchogue is on track to open before the end of the summer. 

The facility will be capable of sorting hundreds of tons of commercial waste from construction and demolition sites and then processing that raw material to be sold for reuse instead of being thrown in a landfill. It will be the only one of its kind on Long Island, said owners Jon DiVello and Stanley Lomangino of sister company Mattituck Environment Services (formerly Mattituck Sanitation). Peconic Recycling will deal with commercial customers only and will not accept or process any residential waste or recyclables.

“It is going to divert about 85 percent of waste that would have ended up in a landfill,” Mr. DiVello said.

The facility is slated to be fully functional by Sept. 1, but the road to its construction has been a challenging one, he said.

First proposed in 2007, the project was slowed after the economy took a prolonged downturn. It hit another snag more recently when the long, harsh winter delayed construction after the project received its building permit and owners cleared land for the site in December.

Crew finally began work late last month on a 32,000-square-foot warehouse facility and 2,200-square-foot office, both located on a parcel north of Corporate Road and Commerce Avenue, near the Southold Town landfill.

By mid-July, the currently empty recycling and transfer station will be outfitted with state-of-the-art machinery that sorts metal, paper, plastics and other recyclable materials for resale nationally and internationally.

Once the facility becomes operational, the volume of commercial and construction/demolition waste handled at the facility will be capped at 240 tons per day.

Mr. DiVello said Peconic Recycling will create 20 to 30 full-time jobs with wages averaging $36,500 per year.

“Not only will it create jobs, it will create skilled jobs, which there aren’t a lot of on the island,” he said.

Plans to establish an apprenticeship program are also in the works.

The project, however, is not without its skeptics.