Recycling

Recycling in 2009 – A Complicated and Costly Task

On February 4, 2009, Wolfgang Tiedtke and Ron Warnken took a tour of the Cobb County Composting Plant on County Services Parkway. The visit is part of the project to investigate the state of recycling in Cobb County. If anything, it demonstrated the difficulties of coming to grips with the huge amount of potential recyclables as it is discarded and picked-up every day.

The plant covers a total of 5 acres and processes approx. 200 tons of household waste and 100 tons of treatment plant sludge per day. It was originally a Bedminster plant and after it burned Cobb County took it over in order to meet a mandate to recycle 25% of their garbage. The original cost was approx. $23 millions. There are only 2-3 such plants in the country and it is a system to separate organics from the household garbage through a microbic process. The entire cycle to produce compost takes 5 weeks and longer.

The end product, however, is not compost in a sense of fertilizer, but rather a soil conditioner. By volume, only 25% of raw potential recyclables will turn into compost, the rest still goes to a landfill. By weight 50% of solids are ejected. (Does this justify such large investment or would this be the cost for separation no matter what the process?) What they call recycling is really only an extraction of organics. Glass, plastics, metals and other inorganics are not recycled as there are no takers. Now, with oil prices down, it is cheaper for plastics manufacturers to produce from fresh oil stock than using waste product. For glass and metal similar problems may apply but the most important factor would be lack of an organized waste management cycle so that companies could count on secure supplies.

The supplies for this plant come primarily from small independent haulers and one large company went elsewhere after Cobb raised the dumping fees. In all, the 300 tons represent merely a fraction of the total waste produced in the county every day.

In the recycling industry this kind of plant is referred to as a MERF (Mixed Environmental Recycling Facility). Another problem for the plant is the sale of compost. The demand is very weak and also transportation of the product in large quantities adds a cost many farmers are not willing to pay. So the expense of the facility keeps rising and Cobb County is looking to privatize the plant. Finding a buyer is questionable and even if they do one wonders how new owners would make it profitable. So there looms the prospect of a shutdown due to cost.

But a tour of the plant is an eye opener as to the magnitude of the waste problem everywhere. After the organics have been extracted it allows a view at the volume of plastics and especially plastic bags. It’s already visible at the delivery point. A pile of raw refuse looks white as everything is contained in white plastic bags, and inside are probably additional shopping bags used as garbage bags. People also discard electric cables, water hoses and textiles and chemicals which all add to the cost of separation.

It clearly shows the direction which we would have to take in order to make recycling cost effective. There will be no other way than to mandate that households have to separate all their potential recyclables at some point in the near future. But that can only work, if the entire cycle is able to handle the volume generated. After all, there is also still industrial refuse to deal with. That alone will require billions of investments. Recycling does not come for free. This is something society would have to accept. Of course, the most effective way to reduce the load would be not to produce the waste in the first place.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” That should be the motto of Freecycle™

We all do our best to Refuse, Reuse, and Recycle, but I bet we could do a lot more if we just knew how. Take a look at the discards that you send to the curb on “trash day”. Do you think anyone could use any of it? Or look at the mound of “trash” that your not-very-green neighbor puts out on the curb practically every pick-up day. There goes a nice bicycle, you exclaim, and a vacuum cleaner in better shape than yours, and look at all the cardboard boxes!!!

Freecycle helps us do our part to reduce waste and the burden on landfills, by simply using list-serve technology to find someone who wants our discards. It may be hard to believe at first what some people would want, and drive a few miles to take. The boxes and foam packing material that your new products come in become “moving boxes” to folks who need them for that purpose. Or excess project lumber, paint, wire, carpeting, caulk, tiles, fiberglass batting, rope; even windows, doors; and those toys your children outgrew. Freecycle items ideally are those that would otherwise go to landfills, that local charities generally can’t accept. Broken down, but reparable items—yard equipment, a pressure washer, bikes, exercise equipment, tent, power tools; or stuff you can’t transport to the thrift store: sofa, refrigerator, desk, rug, blankets, large tire for a tree swing; or weird stuff, like your old trophies, Avon bottles you thought would be worth something but aren’t, dog food, magazines; the list goes on right to the kitchen sink.

You offer the item on a post; someone (often several people) request it. You email them back to say they can have it and arrange for pick up; they come out and pick it up; you both benefit, and you meet a new friend. It’s fun. Of course there are some guidelines. You will learn these upon joining.
You can also ask for items; you simply post a “Wanted”, for whatever you’d like to have.

Freecycle™ is a Yahoo site; access it at http://www.freecycle.org/. Find your nearest group, and join. Set your preferences to receive all posts, once-a-day compilation, or no emails (go to the site and access the messages when you want to; read them all or search for what you are looking for). Do it soon, or you may miss out on that sewing machine my wife is ready to offer up.

-- Written by Rick Krause of the Sierra Club's Georgia Chapter Greater Gwinnett Group

Local Resources

Click here for a guide to local recycling resources. Please note that these resources change on a regular basis and it is a good idea to contact them before making the trip.