Keasbey Recycling Company President Wins NJDEP Environmental Award

Valerie Montecalvo, president of , was awarded top honors for environmental leadership by the (NJDEP) at a dinner in Trenton last week.

More than 60 nominations were received and poured over by a panel of judges, who chose Montecalvo for her dedication to environmental innovation and stewardship. The ceremony was held at the NJ State Museum on Thursday, Dec. 8.

Montecalvo was present to receive the award at the 12th annual Governor's Environmental Excellence Awards ceremony, an event co-sponored by the NJ Corporation for Advanced Technology and the NJ League of Municipalities. Honors were given in various categories covering the entire spectrum of the state's environmental concerns, including clean air, water resources, and healthy ecosystems, among others categories.

In a statement, the DEP said that Montecalvo was chosen for the award because of her "leadership efforts in the field of recycling and her company's commitment to alternative energy." Under her leadership, Bayshore Recycling operates an array of permitted recycling facilities with a combined capacity of over 10,000 tons per day.

Bayshore and its affiliated companies operate six different NJDEP approved recycling businesses which engage in recycling concrete, asphalt, brick, block and glass cullet into aggregate materials; remediating petroleum-contaminated soils; materials recovery of mixed construction and demolition debris into products such as landscaping mulch and bio-fuel; full-service metals recycling; recycling of consumer electronics; and acceptance of dredge material at an existing barge terminal.  

When the eco-complex is completed, the company plans on operating 100 percent green businesses powered by 100 percent renewable energy, the company said in statement.   

Beyond its sustainable recycling operations, the Keasbey facility currently receives 40 percent of its energy for its soil operation from 9,365 solar panels—just the beginning of Montecalvo’s renewable energy vision.   In 2008, $5.7 million was invested for a 679-kilowatt rooftop solar energy system that assists in powering the day to day operations of the facility's 52-acre eco-complex and energy campus, the NJDEP said in giving her the award. 

Montecalvo said that her blueprint is to add more solar, wind, tidal and biomass to energy technologies to complete the company's progressive business plan. Established in 1995, Bayshore was dubbed the “Mega-Mall of Recycling” by Lisa Jackson, former NJDEP commissioner and current administrator of the USEPA under President Barack Obama.