Clean up under way at site of Bush Recycling

By Dwight Dana
Morning News reporter
Published: July 7, 2008

FLORENCE — Zack Spence is on the twilight side of a Herculean task: cleaning up the five-acre site that was home to Bush Recycling for 63 years.

Spence, 50, is a salesman and project manager for Fenn-Vac of Charleston, a subsidiary of Republic Services Inc. Environmental and Industrial Services.

“We’ve found a little bit of everything in the two feet of soil we’re removing,” Spence said. “Most of it is junk and trash.”

Among other things, Fenn-Vac workers have found car parts, 350 tires and old rims and appliances. They also demolished two old buildings.

They have shipped out thousands of tons of debris since June 3 to the Lee County Landfill. They are also recycling everything possible.

“We’ve found engine blocks, transmissions and a few snakes and possums,” he said. “We also took out two rail spurs, thousands of feet of rail line and railroad ties.”

Spence was running 55 to 60 trucks a day in the early going. Every load that goes out has to be documented.

They are using two huge excavators that rest on mounds of dirt so that the operators can see the tops of the trucks when they discharge their mammoth loads.

“We call it a loading deck,” Spence said. “We use these decks to make sure that the loads are balanced. If they aren’t balanced, the trucks could roll over when they get to the landfill.”

Jerry Rowell and Mike Williams operate the excavators, while Richard Gannt is charged with checking the trucks in and out.

Rowell lowered the excavator’s empty bucket. He was sitting on a loading deck filled with dirt, carburetors, alternators, pipe, cable and a dented 1970s Buick hubcap.

“I can hold about two tons in that bucket,” he yelled from the mountain top.

The price of diesel fuel has gone up from around $3.80 a gallon to $4.60 since Spence bid on the job.

“We spend around $800 every two days just to fill up the excavators that we are renting,” he said. “This doesn’t include the trucks.”

Spence is a Lexington native. He graduated from the University of South Carolina with an undergraduate degree in humanities and social science.

He said he enjoys the work because “I like to meet people and I’m always going different places to bid on jobs. It’s nobody’s fault but mine whether we make money or lose it. But these guys who work here are great at what they do and that helps more than I can say.”

Spence was in the fitness business before his present line of work. He still works out three to four days a week and can bench 325 pounds.

A member at the fitness company he was working for asked Spence if he knew how to calculate the cost of moving dirt. He knew how to do so because he worked in construction growing up.

“The member asked me to work with him in the environmental business,” Spence said. “I worked with him until I was hired by the company in Charleston.”

And how does one calculate the cost of moving dirt?

“You basically calculate the area times the depth you’re going to and then do the math to get the cubic yards,” he said. “Then you divide that by 27 cubic feet per cubic yard and that tells you how many cubic yards you have. Then you can run your tons on that.”

Meanwhile, once the soil is removed, Spence will have trucks coming in to replace it. He said he expects the new dirt to be in by the end of this month, give or take a week.