Sunday, June 3, 2012

Making Recycling Easy…

Remember back in the day when you had to sort out all your recyclables? Paper, Glass, Metal, and Plastic - all had to be sorted and arranged before that day of the week when it finally got picked up. Welcome to 2012 - where many municipalities have switched to the concept of single stream recycling. A fancy term meaning that everything goes into one bin because it greatly increases the likelihood that people will actually recycle. According to a recent study, US Households are almost 90% more likely to recycle if they don't have to put the effort into separating their trash. These numbers were convincing enough to municipalities in California who began implementing single stream recycling in the late 1990s. Since then, single stream programs have been popping up all over the nation moving its way eastward. Today, an estimated 220 city and regional single stream programs are in operation in 27 states serving about 72 million people; this is compared with 11 states and 16 million people in 2005, according to Government Advisory Associates (CBS, 2011). Once picked up, these comingled materials are separated at the single-stream Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) through the use of various magnets, screens, optical scanners and manual sorting techniques. As a result of waste processors handling the separation of these materials, consumers and municipalities alike are seeing the value of this technology, enabling it to become a more widespread recycling solution in the U.S. that creates jobs and helps our environment.

How it Works…

So your mixed recyclables container is picked up once or twice a week and taken to a single-stream recycling facility. Depending on your region, it will be taken to your local plant that processes recyclables on an hourly basis. The incoming materials start the journey on a conveyor belt where workers remove trash, large objects, and plastic bags, anything that can clog the machinery or be removed from the recycling process at its beginning stages. The conveyor belt then leads into something called a ‘disk screen’ where rows of spinning disks push large pieces of cardboard up and out of the stream as the smaller recyclables fall below.

The remaining materials are then dropped on to another conveyor belt where more workers are separating trash and leftover cardboard that may cross their path. This belt the leads into another disk screen – a double decker that separates out lighter paper products such as newspapers so that soda cans and water bottles fall below. The remaining enclosures enter an enclosure where a magnet removes any steel objects from the stream. At this point glass bottles and jars are screened out and shattered into small pieces by large disks as their shards fall below. Aluminum cans pass through an eddy current which imparts an electrical charge so another magnet can repel them onto a separate belt. The items remaining in the stream, plastics and some trash pass through a device that uses an ultra-violet light to scan each items composition. When a plastic item is scanned, its position is registered on the belt and then reaches its precipice before the moment the item plunges below it is sucked up into the appropriate receptacle above while everything else falls to the seemingly pit-less dark depths below.

Case Study

The City of Madison, Wisconsin began single stream recycling with automated collection in September of 2005, following two years of planning. The time was perfect for this transition since recycling trucks needed to be replaced, the transfer station needed redesign, and the recycling contract was up for renewal. According to the Solid and Hazardous Waste Education Center who conducted the case study, 2006 was the first full year of implementation of the single stream recycling system and Madison experienced a significant increase in tonnages. The City increased overall recycling by 25% from the year before. Additionally, the City achieved over $103,000 in landfill tipping fees savings in 2006 as compared to 2005.

Single stream recycling is gaining popularity across the United States because many residents prefer it because of convenience in terms of not having to sort materials. Municipalities and collectors also prefer the method due to increased ease and efficiency of collection with mechanized lifting of carts, associated cost savings, reduced injuries on the job, and increased overall participation and tonnage collected. However, it must be warned, Single stream systems are not always cheaper alternative. Cost increases can come in the form of new carts/bins, new trucks, education of residents, and the construction or renovation of a MRF or recycling center. Single stream recycling systems should be targeted towards areas where there is lack of recycling centers or dramatically increase tonnage the amount of tonnage collected. Communities really need to analyze their specific situations in order to decide which type of program is the best fit for them.  Implementing this type of process requires the coordinating of Municipalities, collectors, processors, and manufacturers who must all work together to organize the logistics to share costs equally figure out the highest amount and percentage of quality recyclables that can potentially be recovered.

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