Talk with SCS Engineers experts about your solid waste management needs at BOOTH 203 at SOAR 2024, SWANA’s premier technical conference that brings together industry professionals from all disciplines of the resource management community.
This year’s conference, “Technical Solutions for Resource Management” will take place April 15-18 at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Several SCS Engineers solid waste experts are presenting at this year’s conference, including:
“We’re Running Out of Space! Now What?” featuring Central Business Unit Director Anastasia Welch (Tuesday, April 15, 2:00-2:45 pm, Landfill Management Track)
“Regulatory Changes,” featuring Senior Project Advisor Alex Stege
(Wednesday, April 17, 9:00-9:45 AM, Landfill Gas & Biogas Track)
“Regional Approach to Food Recovery,” with Senior Vice President Michelle Leonard
(Wednesday, April 17, 3:00-3:45 pm, Sustainable Materials Track)
“Innovations in Waste-to-Value Approaches,” featuring Vice President Stacey Demers
(Wednesday, April 17, 4:00-4:45 pm, Waste Conversion & Energy Recovery Track)
“Quantifying the Impact of Recycling Contamination on Desired Materials,” with SCS Project Manager Brent Dieleman and Ravi Kadambala (Miami-Dade County Government) (Wednesday, April 17, 4:00-4:45 pm, Sustainable Materials Management Track)
SOAR brings together professionals and experts and offers technical education, networking events, and peer-to-peer learning. You’ll leave SOAR with actionable, fact-based solutions for all aspects of resource management to implement in your facilities. SOAR delivers practical solutions to solid waste’s most difficult challenges.
This technical conference connects experts and problem-solvers in industry-changing conversations about your most complex challenges.
Recycling contamination occurs when materials are placed into the wrong recycling bin (placing a glass bottle into a mixed paper recycling bin, for example) or when materials are not properly cleaned, such as when food residue remains on a container. Simply throwing something into the recycling hoping that it will find its way to where it needs to eventually be is a major cost for your solid waste or public works department in time and money.
Bagged recyclables and other soft plastics cannot be processed by most sorting machinery, and sorting them by hand expose workers to health risks. Soft plastics also cause damage to the sort line. The level of contamination in a recycling bin directly affects your recycler’s ability to recover resources effectively.
November 15th was America Recycles Day. We’ve learned a lot about recycling facilities from the projects we’ve completed and the clients with whom we’ve worked. In that spirit, Betsy Powers of SCS shares a few tips for recycling right every day and greatly reducing contamination.
Don’t bag your recyclables.
If you use a plastic bag to collect/store your recyclables, dump them into your recycling cart loose and reuse the plastic bag or put it in your trash. The bags get caught up in the machinery used to sort equipment, leading to facility downtime and requiring workers to enter the large pieces of equipment to remove bags.
Take plastic grocery bags to your local supermarket drop-off containers. Sandwich bags, bubble wrap, plastic wrapping, and other flimsy materials that don’t survive the poke test (where the plastics are soft enough to push your finger through it) can also be taken to drop-off areas. This does not include chip bags, cereal bags, etc.
Don’t crush/flatten cans or containers.
Recycling facilities typically include equipment that sorts items by shape (2D paper vs. 3D containers (plastic and metal)). A crushed aluminum beverage can may be treated as 2D and be sorted with the paper stream, either contaminating a bale of paper or being picked out as contamination and going to a landfill (either way, not being recycled).
Similar to above, break down boxes, so they are identified as paper (2D).
Empty your containers.
If your water bottle has water in it, it may not get recycled. The extra weight added by the liquid can make an item get missed by the sorting equipment.
If an item consists of mixed materials (e.g., paper-bubble wrap envelopes, laminated paper, plastic, and a metal bird feeder), throw it in the trash.
Generally, items with a dimension less than 2 inches (e.g., straws, bottle caps, coffee pods, plastic cutlery, paperclips) will end up as residue and go to a landfill, so consider just throwing those smaller items right into your trash. This saves money and makes the recycling operations more efficient.
Tips:
Keep plastic caps on the bottle and place them in the recycling bin.
Store metal bottle caps in a tin can, pinch the top of the tin can together to hold the bottle tops, then put the can in your recycling bin.
It’s tempting to put items in our recycling bins that we want to be recycled, but when in doubt, throw them out.
We all enjoy a success story, especially when it comes to reducing contamination in recyclable materials. Congratulations to the city and citizens for their Clean/Green campaign with its many benefits. Bill Bensing, Director of Public Services in Kirkwood, takes us through his journey in this timely APWA Reporter article.
As it does nationwide, Florida’s aspirational 75% recycling goal presents unique challenges and opportunities. Specifically, Florida municipal policymakers and professional staff are wrestling with contamination and changing global commodity markets that affect the financial viability of their recycling programs…
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – WDNR is performing a waste sort to determine what’s in the trash going into Wisconsin’s landfills. During the waste audit, the team will collect at least 200 samples of waste from 12 waste disposal sites across the state for eight weeks. It’s a dirty …
Cities have begun to “right-size” their recycling systems by evaluating the usage of community recycling containers and reducing/redistributing containers to maximize the quantity of recyclables each site receives. Communities are evaluating curbside recycling programs to increase efficiency, and decreasing contamination is a priority…
Learn how four municipalities are finding ways to lower their operational costs to balance the rising cost of recycling.
Three distinguished recycling experts describe how cities from Kirkland, Washington to Oklahoma City to Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have taken action to lower their operational costs, offsetting the cost of recycling. Each city takes a different approach, but all are using sound strategies to balance the books successfully and sustainably.
Karen Luken, CEO, Economic Environmental Solutions, provides an overview of the Chinese Sword, collection and processing options to increase efficiency, strategies to decrease contamination.Robert Gardner, Senior Vice President, SCS Engineers, offers case studies from four cities that are focusing on collection and processing to increase efficiency, offsetting the cost of the Chinese sword.Eric MacDonald, Zero Waste Analyst, Phoenix Public Works Department, presents the City of Phoenix’s approach for reducing contamination and marketing recyclables from the MRF in light of the Chinese Sword.
How municipalities have offset higher recycling processing fees by decreasing collection costs through technology and routing efficiency
Identify strategies to reduce contamination in recyclables
Using the benefits of automation in solid waste management
Recognizing how automation can improve safety
Participants may earn CEU credit for attending during the Test Your Knowledge portion of the program evaluation.
APWA encourages group participation and follows up as part of their program to Continue the Conversation promoting a deeper understanding of how these solutions relate directly to your responsibilities, agency or department, and city.
Learn how four municipalities are finding ways to lower their operational costs to balance the rising cost of recycling.
Three distinguished recycling experts describe how cities from Kirkland, Washington to Oklahoma City to Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have taken action to lower their operational costs, offsetting the cost of recycling. Each city takes a slightly different approach, but all are using the same strategies to balance the books successfully and sustainably.
Karen Luken, CEO, Economic Environmental Solutions, provides an overview of the Chinese Sword, collection and processing options to increase efficiency, strategies to decrease contamination.Robert Gardner, Senior Vice President, SCS Engineers, offers case studies from four cities that are focusing on collection and processing to increase efficiency, offsetting the cost of the Chinese sword.Eric MacDonald, Zero Waste Analyst, Phoenix Public Works Department, presents the City of Phoenix’s approach for reducing contamination and marketing recyclables from the MRF in light of the Chinese Sword.
How municipalities have offset higher recycling processing fees by decreasing collection costs through technology and routing efficiency
Identify strategies to reduce contamination in recyclables
Using the benefits of automation in solid waste management
Recognizing how automation can improve safety
Participants may earn CEU credit for attending during the Test Your Knowledge portion of the program evaluation.
APWA encourages group participation and follows up as part of their program to Continue the Conversation promoting a deeper understanding of how these solutions relate directly to your responsibilities, agency or department, and city.
Contamination causes major problems for recycling programs. Improving communication plays a pivotal role in solving the issue.
Tracie Onstad Bills, Northern California Director, Sustainable Materials Management at SCS Engineers
Thank you for the responses and questions about my blog Minimizing Contamination in Recycling. It seems appropriate to provide answers to the most frequently asked questions and send more advice. Any program should be tailored to your current collection system; what works and what doesn’t work for your locality; the demographics of your community; and how your community views recycling.
In light of those considerations, here are some recommendations for ways to minimize contamination in recyclables:
Mail outreach materials to business and residents on a regular basis. When your community is adding recycling or switching to a new recycling program, mail outreach starting 6 months before the new services begin to inform and prepare the community for the change. Then every other month send new information about the program so people get used to hearing about the upcoming program, what is expected of them, and the positive difference they are making in their community.
Use social media to get your message out, Including NextDoor, Facebook, Twitter, the local government/community website, newspapers, community TV stations, and radio. One of the people who responded to my previous blog, Cyril May, even uses magic as a part of his environmental outreach. He is the recycling coordinator for the City of Waterbury, CT, and uses magic to demonstrate the power of recycling when he goes door-to-door or speaks at schools. “Turning a ripped up newspaper into a new newspaper shows the magic of recycling that everyone has,” he says. “Causing dollar bills to vanish in smoke and flame showcases the taxpayer dollars lost when we send valuable recyclables to incinerators.”
After the service starts, follow up with additional outreach. Highlight what people should do as well as what they should not do. Yes – I am a firm believer in excellent outreach, education, and communication!
Some studies have suggested providing trash cans that are the same size as the recycling can, because when the recycling is free, people often will throw their trash into the recycling containers in order to keep a small trash container for a cheaper cost. I am not an advocate of this method, however, I am a realist and know that this is one cause of contamination, so keep an eye on it!
Make sure your hauler keeps track of any contamination issues and the causes. Knowing what the contamination is and why it is caused, will help you determine the next steps on how to address it. For example, if you have slight contamination because residents and businesses are throwing in items that they think are recyclable, you can continue to educate them about what can and cannot be recycled. However, if they are putting trash in the recycling containers in order to save costs, that is another matter that needs to be addressed appropriately, and may include citations or fines.
Many people throw more than they should into their recycling containers because they think “the hauler will sort it at the facility,” and so they don’t feel the need to be extra cautious about how they sort. As part of your outreach, I would recommend letting the community know that the cleaner the materials, the better the market and the more economical the service. They need to understand that there are consequences when they are not careful about how they recycle.
Make sure that the materials you accept in your recycling program can, in fact, be recycled. Cities often accept items in recycling containers because they can be recycled in theory (for example, milk cartons and polystyrene), when, in fact, they may not be. Depending on the local dynamics, recycling markets, recoverability at the recycling facility, or other barriers, certain materials may or may not be recycled. Be consistent with the materials you accept and don’t take items that may cause confusion.
In California, we have very diverse demographics and multiple languages. Providing outreach in those different languages, and even better, with pictures, will help your community fully understand the recycling program.
Go into the schools to get the kids engaged and excited about recycling. If you are starting a new recycling program, facilitate an assembly right before and/or after the service starts. Kids often influence their family’s behavior in such matters.
Multi-family dwellings should be treated differently than single-family residences. Because residents of multi-family dwellings do not typically pay for the service directly, their containers will almost always be contaminated because there is no ownership of the responsibility. There are other barriers as well, such as illegal dumping, fluctuation of tenants, move-in or move-out purging of material, etc. I have a different set of recommendations for multi-family dwellings which I consider one of the toughest nuts to crack.
Make sure the recycling haulers place non-collection tags on containers that are contaminated. After a few violation notices and the threat to suspend service, residents and businesses usually improve, especially when they realize that someone is watching them.
Be diligent when transitioning to your new recycling program and closely monitor how your residents and businesses are doing. I would recommend having a few interns go out for the first month or two and conduct random lid flips. Leave notes that say “good job – you’re an excellent recycler” to reinforce the good behavior. This will also provide a pulse on how the program is doing, where the problems are, and if there are certain districts of the city that are more contaminated than others. By isolating the areas that have high contamination, you can focus your outreach and education to the regions that need message reinforcement.
Be flexible. Remember that your program will be evolving, so go with the flow, and be sure to celebrate your successes!
“We’re Running Out of Space! Now What?” featuring Central Business Unit Director Anastasia Welch
“Regulatory Changes,” featuring Senior Project Advisor Alex Stege
“Regional Approach to Food Recovery,” with Senior Vice President Michelle Leonard
“Innovations in Waste-to-Value Approaches,” featuring Vice President Stacey Demers
“Quantifying the Impact of Recycling Contamination on Desired Materials,”
