Calvin Prof: Recycling Pioneer

They started with a 55-gallon drum, an old washing machine motor and a few chains assembled in a college engineering lab at a cost of $25: the humble beginnings of recycling in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Today, a combination of conveyors, shakers, blowers and magnets can process 18 tons of recyclables an hour or 108 tons per day at a state-of-the-art $12 million facility: the recently opened Kent County Recycling and Education Center in downtown Grand Rapids.

For Calvin College engineering professor emeritus James Bosscher and a few of his students, it would have been hard to imagine this evolution 38 years ago.

"I'm very thankful about the way it all turned out," said Bosscher of Kent County's recycling program. "It just always seemed to me this is what we should be doing."

It was Bosscher who in 1972 urged his students to design the prototype glass smasher to be used for community projects. Just the previous year, Bosscher had organized a glass drive to raise funds for a local charity, but the manual glass smashing limited volume and profitability.

"From there it set me onto an idea: For the next three years, the engineering design students designed recycling machinery," said Bosscher.

The can crusher was next, followed by the plastic bottle shredder and finally a trailer that could transport the equipment for on-the-spot recycling at the same time as garbage collection—a mini recycling center on wheels.