No need to sort: Recycling goes 'single stream'
Excerpts from article published in The Ridgefield Press July 14, 2011, online July 16.
Jake Kara
Press Staff
You’re in the recycling center, peering at those bins, holding a plastic hummus container with no number on the bottom. Is it a number two plastic? A seven? And what about those pesky envelopes with plastic windows, or the cardboard coffee cans with metal rims? Maybe you avoided recycling altogether, seeing it as a time-consuming process with more rules than a round of golf — is a greasy pizza box like a two-stroke penalty? Oh, forget it...
But wait! Recycling has just gotten a lot easier in Ridgefield, thanks to a new “single stream” process started this week by recycling center managing company Hudson Baylor that allows people to dump everything in one bin.
Ridgefielders haul 1,600 to 1,700 tons of recyclables to the center each year, and Hudson processes about 2,000 to 3,000 tons total, including pick-ups around town. That’s about 4.5 tons brought by individuals a day or 32 tons per week. (The Ridgefield Press prints about two tons of newspapers per week, or 107 tons per year.) Though predicting a change in usage is something of a guessing game, some of the more successful conversions to single-stream have increased 20 to 30%, according to Hudson Baylor President Scott Tenney.
How it works
Hudson will now cart the unsorted material to a plant in Beacon, N.Y., that sorts the material in a warehouse-size, Rube Goldberg-like machine run by about 120 employees.
The co-mingled material is “presorted” by employees who take out any materials, like large metal or plastic, that could harm the machine. Then seven screens filter fibers from containers, a magnet plucks out tin; and an eddy current sweeps up lightweight aluminum. Optical sensors filter out plastic and vacuum picks up film, which is mostly plastic bags. Everything is baled by the machine, except glass.
So what about those envelopes with windows? When the envelope is sorted in with paper, it’s boiled in chlorinated water and stirred into a pulp. Impurities like staples or envelope windows “come out in the wash,” said Hudson Baylor Vice President Tim Flanagan. That metal rim from the coffee can? It sticks to the magnetized stirrer.
Big business
Recycling is a growing industry, even in today’s weak economy, with about 40% growth from 2009 to 2010, making it a $77 billion-industry, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. The U.S. exported about $30 billion in scrap materials, up from around $22 billion, the group said. The biggest commodities were iron and steel, with $20 million, and paper with $19 million.
Having a ball
Ridgefield was an early leader in Connecticut recycling. The center first opened in 1974 after some creative fund raising helped it get off the ground.
The “Dump Ball” in the parking lot of the town garage across the street drew national attention.
“The Dump Ball was a gala event, but every now and then you’d get a whiff of the dump,” Walter McNamara, who was instrumental in fund-raising and running the plant, said 25 years later. [...]
—TheRidgefieldPress.com