Earth Day is Every Day
As Program Director for the Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) in Brattleboro, VT, I am asked every April whether we are doing something “special” for Earth Day. My response, “when working at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), every day is Earth Day”.
A MRF is a place where recyclables are sorted and prepared for the manufacturing market. Since 1995, when the 30-acres of unlined landfill in southeastern VT were closed and the WSWMD Board of Supervisors opted to get out of the garbage business and into the resource recovery business, every day became Earth Day. It’s no small task monitoring a closed landfill (30 years of water tests and gas monitoring) let alone trying to site a new one under RCRA Subtitle D (liner requirements, leachate collection, run-off controls, NIMBY, etc.), so WSWMD voted to build a MRF instead. At that time, a dual-stream MRF was the state of the art system.
Recycling in the early 1990’s required many collection containers at the transfer station and in the home. Remember when labels had to be removed from steel cans, plastic windows torn from envelopes, paper had to be categorized (white paper, newspaper, color paper, magazines, etc.) with contaminants removed (paper clips, staples, sticky labels, etc), and glass was sorted by color (green, clear, brown)? That was pre-sort, the fundamentals of recycling. Some towns still maintain pre-sort collection systems because the recyclables are more pure and have a higher market value. But many towns have elected to increase recycling rates by simplifying the system.
A dual-stream collection system is one such simplified system. It divides recyclables into two categories – fibers and containers. Residents simply separate paper products from bottles and cans. Participation increases and collection costs decrease because there are fewer collection containers, and it takes less time to fill and empty the containers. The only catch: the materials need to be delivered to a MRF. They cannot be sent directly to a manufacturer. The MRF sorts the recyclables so residents don’t have to.
Converting to a dual-stream system has provided WSWMD with the ability to process more recyclables (40 tons per day) and offer more services: generating electricity from the landfill gas (methane, a major ‘greenhouse gas’); recycling all landfill banned items (tires, appliances, motor oil, lead acid batteries, etc.); increasing the number of household hazardous waste collections; expanding composting programs; swapping reusable goods; and helping others with their long term waste management goals through on-site training programs. In sum, when the WSWMD chose to transform itself from a burial ground into a dual-stream MRF, it became a resource management Mecca.
But the dual-stream MRF is fast becoming obsolete. The buzz of the 21st century recycling industry is “single-stream MRF”. A single-stream collection system combines all recyclables, regardless of composition; reducing collection costs but increasing processing costs. Although single-streams have touted a 75% increase in participation rate, compared to a 50% percent increase from pre-sort to dual stream, the trade-off is always reduced quality.
Resource Recycling magazine reported that residue from single-stream MRF averages 17%, a dual-stream MRF 7%, and a pre-sort system is only 4%. This disparity in quality levels worries many end-markets. Broken glass is the biggest concern for paper companies because shards get mixed in with the paper products, creating tremendous problems and damaging equipment. The “all in one” mentality could also pose future problems, i.e. textiles, electronics, and batteries. Thus, the industry consensus is that single-stream MRF isn’t the greatest, but new technology will hopefully reduce quality concerns. For now, a dual-stream system provides the best of all worlds – ease, excellence, and education. Celebrate Earth Day by visiting your local MRF and see for yourself what happens to your recyclables. |
