Recycling Question

[OkieDiva]

Hey, RM -

Was at a church dinner last night and got talking about trash service (the two FloParkers at the table love once weekly, BTW). That led to a discussion about recycling - half of the table said you COULD recycle the mounds of Christmas catalogs, others said catalog paper is too shiny for recycling. Can you advise which bin Lands End, etc. belongs in? Thanks.

[RecycleMichael]

Almost everything that is paper can be recycled.
The glossy paper is recyclable with the other office paper or junk mail.

The few catalogs that are over an inch thick are the ones you have to be careful with. The glue on the backing can be a real problem for the recyling process.

Try to separate the paper from the containers in your recycling bin if possible to keep it clean. At the ten M.e.t. centers (opening number eleven on Monday in Collinsville) we have three separate bins for paper...one for newspaper, one for magazines, and one for everything else.

[sgrizzle]

Current curbside pickup in my area says the only paper they take is newspaper. Catalogs, junkmail, etc all have to be taken to a recycling center.

[RecycleMichael]

That is not correct. They should take all normal paper.

http://www.cityoftulsa.org/Environment/Recycling/CurbsideService.asp

You can also take most paper to almost any school and church through a private recycler.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

That is not correct. They should take all normal paper.

http://www.cityoftulsa.org/Environment/Recycling/CurbsideService.asp

You can also take most paper to almost any school and church through a private recycler.

That site does not match the instructions we got when we signed up. It said newspaper only and that newspaper had to be separated from the rest of the recyclables.

[OkieDiva]

Thanks... always do try to keep separate. Yogurt-y newspapers are disgusting.

Congrats on #11. How does it work - do the items we put in our curbside bins make their way to one of the MET centers, or is there separate facility that handles that volume?

[RecycleMichael]

The curbside recyclables are collected and sold by a different company than the M.e.t. The money from them goes back to the trash hauling company that has the contract. The bins at schools and churches is also a different company than the M.e.t. as well. Add to that Borg and Yaffe metal companies and the handful of commercial paper companies and you can see that there are a lot of people employed in recycling.

Our website and brochures promote every recycling effort we know of in town. We have been part of most of them getting started in business and continue to be a free consultant to them, even if some of them see us as their competition. I recycle my glass bottles through the curbside program, take my paper to my kids school every December for their paper drive, and everything else to the M.e.t.

The newspaper and aluminum is always taken to the M.e.t. because they are so valuable and the M.e.t. needs the revenue. Newspaper is more than 60% of the overall recycling revenue from our centers. We lose money on many of the items we collect (batteries, anti-freeze, phone books) but feel they are important to keep out of the landfill.

I am especially proud of our M.e.t. center workers. Each center is staffed by an agency with workers with disabilities. I am making plans for our Christmas party next week and realized that we now have over a hundred of these workers, many of whom have never had a different job than working at the recycling centers. It is very gratifying to combine two good causes like that and is one of the reasons why more people recycle at the five M.e.t. Tulsa drop-off centers than the now 11,000 households who get curbside service.

[spoonbill]

I'm curious.  I know very little about the economics of recycling.  I've read several articles that show these programs as a great advantage.  In my neighborhood there are only a small handful of people who participate in the program.  Probably something like one in every ten houses.  The truck that covers my neighborhood is always nearly empty on it's way out of the subdivision.  Do these trucks burn diesel or natural gas?

I have a good friend up north who is a VP for one of the big aluminum recycling companies.  He once told me that aluminum recycling saves the aluminum industry billions of dollars.  They spend money every year for lobbyists to push tax incentives for recycling programs.  When I asked him how much diesel is necessary to transport the product back to the smelters, he told me that the fuel charges are absorbed by the savings v.s. processing ore, but that the amount of environmental exposure is enormous if the individual recyclers are using diesel vehicles rather than natural gas.  

Is that a problem for us?

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by spoonbill
Do these trucks burn diesel or natural gas?

Tulsa is doing some conversions to natural gas this year. They did some about a decade before with poor results, but are optomistic about the new types of conversions.

There is dramatic energy savings making a can from recycled rather than virgin materials. Every beverage can recycled saves enough energy to run your TV for over two hours.

[spoonbill]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

quote:Originally posted by spoonbill
Do these trucks burn diesel or natural gas?

Tulsa is doing some conversions to natural gas this year. They did some about a decade before with poor results, but are optomistic about the new types of conversions.

There is dramatic energy savings making a can from recycled rather than virgin materials. Every beverage can recycled saves enough energy to run your TV for over two hours.

That's good to hear about the conversions.

I understand the energy savings, that's why it saves IMCO and the others so much money, but what Jim was telling me is that it saves energy on the side of the smelter but increases environmental exposure due to the fact that most of the material is transported back to the smelter via a very inefficient channel of diesel powered transport vehicles and diesel freight.

I don't argue that the smelting requirements (natural gas powered) is reduced significantly.  After all, it takes a whole lot of ore to produce a relatively small amount of aluminum, but a 1KWh of power produced by natural gas has very little impact on the environment as compared with the same amount of energy from diesel.

Because of the financial advantages recycling has given to the big aluminum producers, they are considering more horizontal measures to secure the channel.  I know that Jim's company is considering creating their own company owned network of aluminum recovery/recycling pickup services, rather than buying scrap through independents and municipal systems.  They are not considering natural gas vehicles, but then again, the environment is not their big concern.

[RecycleMichael]

Virgin material extraction can also cause great harm to our planet. One can see that clearly in the Tar Creek area of northeast Oklahoma. The leftover tailings, called chat, have literally poisoned five communities and destroyed the water and the land.

I also marvel at the inefficiencies of making paper from trees when it is so easy to make it from recovered paper. The clear-cutting of the forestland so I can have post-it notes seems so poor a decision.

Yes, transporting recyclables can cause environmental damage. Never trust an environmentalist who drives a car nor an animal rights activist who wears leather shoes.

[spoonbill]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

Virgin material extraction can also cause great harm to our planet. One can see that clearly in the Tar Creek area of northeast Oklahoma. The leftover tailings, called chat, have literally poisoned five communities and destroyed the water and the land.

I also marvel at the inefficiencies of making paper from trees when it is so easy to make it from recovered paper. The clear-cutting of the forestland so I can have post-it notes seems so poor a decision.

Yes, transporting recyclables can cause environmental damage. Never trust an environmentalist who drives a car nor an animal rights activist who wears leather shoes.

I thought Tar Creek was Zink and lead mining.  The chat contained high levels of lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals.  It was a tragedy, and the way it was handled was a tragedy.  We were stupid back then and the impact of our actions was not fully understood.  The coatings industry put a little of tar creek in every home back then too, with the lead base in paint.  We are still paying for that as well.

Totally different process.  The byproduct of aluminum smelting is called dross and is composed of aluminum oxide and salt.  Doesn't have many uses, but is inert once all of the salt and sodium hydroxide is extracted.  They use it for fill on roadbeds and construction projects.  

As for trees. . .

I think the most amazing thing about a tree is all of the wonderful things you can make from it or get from it.  I see a crop of trees no differently than I see a crop of wheat.  Harvest and then replant.  

It is a totally renewable resource that can generate energy, construction, food and keep my bobo clean.  The logging industry has become so efficient that they are growing forests faster than they are harvesting them.  

I digress. . .I agree with the push for more recycling, but an understanding of the drive behind it is necessary.  The big aluminum companies and investors are not pushing for recycling because they have developed a deep concern for the environment, on the contrary, they are pushing the industry in this direction because it makes more money.  You still pay the same for an aluminum coke can, but the company makes 4.6 times more profit from it.  

[PonderInc]

OK, another question: I receive lots of bills/junk mail in envelopes with "windows."   Can I throw the whole thing in with my paper, or do I have to tear the plastic windows off before recycling?

[RecycleMichael]

Window envelopes are fine...as are staples and paper clips. The only real contaminants in mixed paper recycling are the glue-backed stickers (even the kind that the Tulsa World sometimes put as advertising on the front page) and the wrapper on a ream of paper (it is coated with an anti-moisture material).

Pretty much everything else made in an office file cabinet or a mailbox can be recycled.