MSW Management | How the Art of Separations Pays Off

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By Diane McDilda

The next year Oregon passed the first “bottle bill” aimed at reducing the number of aluminum cans and glass bottles discarded along state roadsides. By 1973, University City, MO, was offering curbside recycling to residents. Recycling programs popped up all over the country.

In the ’70s, Americans only recycled about 6.6% of their waste. That’s now more than quadrupled to 28%. But have Americans been tricked? Is recycling an economically feasible approach to handling a portion of the country’s wastestream and preserving natural resources? Or is recycling just a placating ruse we use to pat ourselves on the back for the illusion of an environmental job well done?

In the Beginning Was The Container Deposit Law
Container deposit laws were the predecessors of the present-day bottle bills. The beverage industry started deposits to encourage customers to return glass soda and beer bottles so they could be washed, refilled, and redistributed. For the uninitiated, the process works this way. The retailer pays the deposit when the bottles are purchased from the distributor. The retailer then passes that cost down to the consumer. The consumers are reimbursed when they return the bottle either to a retailer or to a reverse vending machine. The returned bottle goes back to the distributor who in turns pays back the retailer.

But when soda and beer started hitting the shelves in aluminum and nonreturnable bottles, things changed. As throwaway bottles littered roadsides and byways, citizens raised their fists in protest and rallied for legislation. Eleven states have bottle bills, and there are active campaigns in another four states. Opponents of bottle bills generally include the beverage industry, food retailers, and consumer groups on the grounds that the requirements are burdensome and costly.

Such measures do require the purchase and operation of additional equipment. And more area is needed to store the used bottles before processing. Opponents also say it’s an antiquated system that undermines curbside recycling by tying up money with bottlers and retailers instead of municipalities.

Beyond the basic bottle bill, states have continued to enact other recycling regulations, including restrictions on disposing of recyclable materials in landfills, setting recycling goals for communities, and requiring specified recycle content for products such as paper and plastic bags. Even so, recycling rates for aluminum, plastic, and glass bottles have been chugging along 2% below the 1996 peak of 30% for 10 years now.

States with bottle bills recycle on the order of 60%–80% of their plastic bottles, while states without these bills only recycle about 10%. The difference isn’t just in the volume—it’s in the quality, too. Phil Cavin is national procurement director for Mohawk Industries Inc., of Calhoun, GA, the largest flooring producer in the world to use No. 1 plastic (polyethylene terephthalate, or PET) soda bottles to produce carpet. The high-quality bottles are ground into chips, cleaned, melted, extruded into fiber, and spun into carpet yarn. Cavin sees the need not just to encourage recycling but to legislate it.

“We are 100% dependent on recycled materials,” Cavin says. “We don’t use any virgin material at this mill. Recycling laws put systems in place to collect and sort material.”

Centers are accepting more types of recyclables, such as plastics.

The mill Cavin is referring to is in Summerville, GA. It produces 175 million pounds of polyester fiber a year. Eighty percent of the polyester is used in the plant to produce carpet and the remaining 20% is sold for stuffing for designer pillows, sleeping bags, and the like.

Cavin explained that Mohawk uses approximately 300 suppliers, ranging from large waste haulers to municipal programs, MRFs, and even to private individuals to provide the needed feedstock. Cavin receives wastestreams of 100% PET bottles from states with bottle bills. States without bottle bills, by comparison, produce wastestreams with 80% PET and 20% lower-quality plastics, useless in carpet making. Ironically, the mill is located in a state without a bottle bill.

But in a free-market society such as ours, shouldn’t a market be created by demand, rather than legislation? Tamsin Ettefagh doesn’t think so. She’s vice president of sales and purchasing for Envision Plastics Inc. With plants in Reidsville, NC, and Chino, CA, Envision reclaims colored and natural HDPE (or No. 2) plastic bottles, then grinds, washes, and extrudes them into pellets. The pellets are then sent off to a blower, where they’re made into new bottles.

“When it comes to plastic, legislation is the driving force,” Ettefagh says. “It gives stability to the market when there’s a base price to cover collection.” When it comes to considering other benefits of recycling, Ettefagh adds, “No one looks at job creation, taxes, saving energy, or fixing a non-renewable resource.”

Ettefagh admits that years ago recycling plastics didn’t make money, but legislation gave industry the push to make recycling more profitable. Optical sorters now separate plastic No. 2 bottles by color so bottles and jugs can be recycled into the same color. Using 25% recycled bottles in feedstock reduces the use of colorant by 25%. Comparing the costs of recycled feedstock to colorant, this process can save up to $0.02 per pound of colorant.

And in times when markets are down and virgin material is cheaper, legislation keeps recycling from completely losing ground. Eventually, Ettefagh believes, the market will stabilize and recycling may not have to be backed by laws, but for now it’s not ready to stand alone.

Ettefagh is encouraged by a recent attempt to pass national legislation rather than to continue to legislate state by state. Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords introduced the Recycling Investment Saves Energy (RISE) Act of 2006 that proposed tax incentives for recycling facilities. Rather than promote the feel-good, pro-environment position so often associated with recycling, Jeffords made sure to highlight recycling’s economic benefits.

The RISE Act was designed to free up money to allow companies to invest in recycling equipment and employees, create more jobs, and improve the quality of the recycle feedstock being sold. The bill was defeated in July, but proponents see the attention to recycling and the broad support from a broad coalition of industries, state governments, and environmental groups as the silver lining.

The Art of Separation
With or without a bottle bill, communities do have choices when it comes to handling their recyclable wastestream. Recyclables can arrive commingled in a single stream or preseparated by residents.

Recycables can arrive in a single stream or preseparated.

Single streams have historically been more difficult to sort and thereby not as marketable as uncontaminated streams. Separating recyclables before they enter the MRF can improve sorting and, ultimately, the outgoing stream. More and more collection and drop-off centers are requiring residents to initiate separation, sorting fibers such as newspaper, junk mail, and magazines from plastic, steel, aluminum, and glass containers.

Another change is that collection centers are accepting more types of recyclables, such as plastics. It used to be that only the more profitable No. 1 and No. 2 plastics were accepted. Now less profitable plastics are accepted, including No. 3–No. 7 plastics, ranging from clear food packaging to meat trays and ketchup bottles. By making separation easier on citizens and allowing them to toss all their plastics into the bin, the collection centers have seen success receiving more No. 1 and No. 2 plastics.

Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC), explains that developments in equipment can improve separating operations at MRFs and result in a higher-quality output. Glass and plastic can be optically sorted to separate colors, and a star screen can be used to separate glass from plastic.

Krebs understands that many communities don’t see the positive aspects of recycling even though more and more manufacturers are aggressively purchasing recyclables as feedstock because of the cost benefits of using them. Recycled materials can be processed at a lower temperature, requiring less energy and putting less strain on equipment. Recycled aluminum requires 98% less energy to process while recycled glass saves 30%–40%.

Pete Grogan is manager of market development for the Federal Way, WA-based Weyerhaeuser Co., which recycles 7 million tons of paper annually for use in its own paper mills and for resale around the world. Grogan explained that the amount of contaminants coming into one of Weyerhaeuser’s processing mills increased from 7 to 35 tons per day when they began accepting waste from single-stream MRFs.

“Having that volume of contaminants creates havoc,” Grogan says. “It’s like taking a sandblaster to the equipment. And that contamination includes other recyclables that we can’t use, like aluminum that we purchased at newsprint prices.”

It’s understood that cost savings from implementing or upgrading a recycling program may not initially surface in smaller communities or in certain parts of the country, and in that case Krebs encourages leaders to listen to their constituents. If they want a recycling program, initiate it, then look to joining a co-op or using a broker to reduce costs and increase revenue. While economically it may seem more feasible to dispose of plastic, newsprint, and metal, landfills will eventually fill up, leaving community leaders with the need to expand the current landfill or establish a new one—an unwieldy task either way.

Krebs also advocates a pay-as-you-throw program that charges consumers for everything they throw away while paying nothing for recyclables. Residents may be tempted to throw everything into the recycle bins and leave their wallets alone, but with a well-planned education program and a well-staffed facility a pay-as-you-throw program can run efficiently and effectively.

Economics of Scale
Recycling is performed by families, communities, and on up to large corporations. Companies and larger municipalities can contract with brokers or large waste haulers and thus negotiate better prices on their recyclables, but small communities and individuals may be at a disadvantage. Based on their location and landfill tipping fees, it can be cheaper for communities to throw away plastic, aluminum, and newspaper rather than deal with recycling these materials.

The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA) of Epsom, NH, is the largest and oldest recycling cooperative, dating back to 1981. The cooperative is nonprofit and works with 300 municipalities, individuals, and businesses in five states to negotiate rates for a wide range of recyclable material.

NRRA Executive Director Elizabeth Bedard sees power in numbers. The association can get members better rates on their recyclables. Bedard reported that one company called, dismayed that it would have to start paying its hauler to make a special trip to pick up cardboard. The NRRA negotiated with another recycler, asking the recycler to modify its pickup schedule to include the company in its route. Rather than paying to have its cardboard picked up, the company that had called ended up making $80 a ton.

Although Bedard works to get co-op members the best prices, she objects to being called a broker. “We work for our members; we don’t work for profit.”

Duncan Watson is solid waste manager for the city of Keene, NH, and is a member of the NRRA. In Keene, private haulers collect recyclables curbside and take them to the city-owned MRF, where mixed bottles travel down a conveyor as employees hand-sort, pulling out clear, green, and brown glass from PET soda bottles and HDPE milk jugs. Magnets pick out the steel, and a rare-earth magnet temporarily magnetizes the aluminum so it can be pulled. All the streams, including paper presorted by residents, end up being compacted and bailed, ready for sale.

Keene is a small town with a population of almost 23,000. Alone, it doesn’t wield much power in negotiating good recycling prices, and Watson doesn’t have the time to shop around for competitive rates. “The co-op offers tremendous benefits for small towns,” he says. “We don’t have the manpower to do the all the legwork.”

When considering whether or not recycling is economical, Watson just does the math. Running waste through the city’s transfer station costs $90 a ton. Running recyclables through the MRF is much less expensive. Not only are they not paying the higher processing fee, but the city is getting a return on a portion of its recyclables. Watson doesn’t consider tipping fees a way to subsidize recycling, because the only revenue generated by solid waste is paid by the residents. Recycling brings in an outside income.

The NRC currently lists 19 cooperatives as members, but there are many more across the country, many of which are teaming up to share resources and better serve their members. The Recycling Alliance of Texas and the Central Texas Recycling Association, both of Austin, TX, are working together to promote recycling and help small communities build profitable recycling programs. Unlike NRRA, the alliance considers itself a broker.

”We’re a broker,” explains Krista Umsheid, spokesperson and senior communications specialist. “We do not handle or process any of the materials. We are responsible for handling all of the logistics of getting our members’ recycled materials picked, processed, and paid for.”

In the city of Portland, OR, with a population just over half a million, garbage and recycling services are handled by 29 franchised hauling companies. Haulers are required to offer recycling systems for residential and business customers. Portland has a mandate that businesses must recycle 50% of their waste or pay a fine to the city. Residential recyclables are separated at the curb and categorized as used oil, glass, containers (plastic and metal), or mixed paper. The recyclables are then sold to MRFs. The monies received for recycling are deducted from operational costs for the haulers.

Bruce Walker, solid waste manager for the city of Portland, explains that smaller haulers are required to join a co-op, not so much for marketing but for purchasing equipment such as trucks. This allows smaller hauling companies to stay competitive as recycling rates increase and more equipment is needed.

“Portland is a large city with a substantial recycling market. There are a lot of mills, and, on the West Coast, MRFs have access to overseas markets,” Walker says.

Atlanta, GA-based Moore & Associates is a paper-recycling consulting firm whose clients include paper mills, equipment suppliers, brokers, and municipalities such as the city of Portland—whose wastestream is 80% paper. President Bill Moore works with clients to develop strategies and to determine long-term pricing forecasts for old newspaper and old corrugated cardboard.

Moore watches trends in the recovered paper market and has witnessed fluctuations firsthand. The mid ’90s were banner years in paper. The market then leveled out until 2000. Recycling rates were stagnant and the US production leveled out until demands from overseas increased. With futures pricing and derivatives, paper pricing can be sophisticated, but Moore doesn’t think this rules out the little guy.

“Size is important, but everybody can craft a program,” Moore says. “You have to have efficiency, high public participation, and get good prices. Simple is good.”

Consumerism—The Circle Of Recyclable Life
Today, recovered US materials are exported all over the world. But over the past decade China and India’s demand for our recovered materials has grown. Today, China is the world’s largest importer of recovered materials. According to China’s inspection and quarantine authorities, the country imported 326,600 shipments of waste materials in 2005, worth $11.5 million (US).

It’s a cycle. Merchandise is manufactured in Asia, then shipped west to the United States, where it’s dispersed to discount stores across the country. Empty cargo containers sit on docks in California waiting to return to China and India. The containers are filled with waste materials, or recovered products like paper, plastic, and metal, and shipped off to make more decorative bric-a-brac and costume jewelry for Americans to buy—the circle of life for recyclables.

The high cost of petroleum, combined with the expansive availability of empty cargo containers, makes shipping overseas less expensive than hauling recovered material across the country. Domestic manufacturers that rely on recyclables are vying aggressively with China and India, two of the most competitive markets.

Tom Mele, president of Connecticut Metal Industries Inc., based in Monroe, CT, is a processor and broker of scrap and nonferrous metal. With the growth in China’s economy, metal prices have soared. Copper that sold for $0.65 a pound just three years ago now sells for $3.50 a pound. Not only is metal in high demand in China, but labor is cheap.

“With their cheap labor force, we can ship whole unused electric motors very cheaply to China, where they are dissected by hand for each of the individual parts, copper wiring, insulated wire,” Mele says. “Here that kind of work would cost $12 to $14 a day. In China it’s $2.50 a day. It’s reduced the manpower at US scrap yards. Now we’ve dug a little deeper in the waste pile and are able to recover items that weren’t financially unattainable before.”

Labor rates in India are comparable to China, Mele says, but shipping is more expensive and exporting is a little more complicated. But as foreign markets mature, wages will increase, and there will be another shift. Chinese manufacturers have already begun subcontracting work to Vietnam because China’s rates have already started to rise, while Vietnam’s remain low.

China also vies for plastics. Patty Moore, president of Moore Recycling Associates Inc., is a plastics broker based in Sonoma, CA. She makes every effort to service the domestic market, making sure that American manufacturers get what they need, but admits it’s very expensive to ship material to markets in the northeast.

“Shipping cargo to the Far East is cheaper by a factor of 10,” Moore says when comparing sending materials to eastern United States.

So What’s A Municipality To Do?
The recycle market varies, with aluminum cans bringing in the wealth of the revenue at about $0.65 a pound (or $1,300 a ton) and plastic containers falling in right behind. The remaining recyclables bring anywhere from $20 per ton for green glass to $90 a ton for newsprint. Recycling doesn’t have to be altruistic; there is money to be made.

Most large municipalities have programs in place and are able to benefit from both the quantity and the quality of their stream. With more revenue generating from recycling, there’s more investment in equipment and staffing, ultimately allowing these municipalities to produce a more consistent product and make more money. Smaller municipalities may not have the advantages larger communities do, but a good review of their recycling programs might turn up lost revenue. It’s important to consider that revenue generated from recycling comes from outside the community, not from solid waste fees.

Ultimately, if recycling is mandated, it’s in every community’s best interest to make the most of it as long as it saves natural resources or requires less energy. There is power in numbers, both for selling recyclables and for buying equipment. Municipalities that need to make their recycling program more profitable should consider joining a cooperative or working with a broker or consultant. For most, the money is out there.

Diane McDilda is an environmental engineer and technical writer in Gainesville, FL.

MSW - January/February 2007