Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Myth-buster: tour of the recycling plant

It is not a myth – the compacting waste-collection trucks you see collecting recyclable materials from the green curbside bins around the city of Cincinnati are not just going to a secret entrance and emptying into the landfill. Rumpke actually has a separate Material Recovery Facility that sorts and processes recyclables and then sells them to various end-users. And I had the distinct honor of having a personal tour along with fellow members of my Health & Environment Committee, Sheila North and Joel Kubala. To further dispel the myth, I will share our adventure here.

When we arrived at the MRF (pronounced almost affectionately, “murph”), we had a quick intro to the facility by our tour guide, Ann Gray. She explained the "single-stream process" used at the facility, where items do not have to be sorted at the curb. The machinery used to sort the items are a work of genius! We soon donned our safety glasses, helmets and reflective vests for a look with our own eyes.

As you walk into the processing area, you are greeted by a mountain of recyclable goods on what is called the Tipping Floor. (yes, it was smelly) A front-loader is constantly pushing the goods into a higher and higher pile. 

The materials are loaded onto a conveyor belt, where they are conveyed up to a Disc Screener. The metal discs are rotating counter clockwise at a high rate of speed and the spaces between the discs allow containers such as glass, plastic jugs, cans and bottles to fall through, while the paper rides on top of the discs. There are fans blowing below to keep the paper going up the disc incline deck. I was unable to get a photo of this, but it was really neat to see. A screener below separates broken glass and whole containers from newspapers. The paper, whole containers and broken mixed glass are the conveyed to separate holding areas from there.

Items making it beyond this sorting point are finally subjected to human interaction, where several individuals monitor the conveyor belt and remove any remaining recyclable material. The rest is conveyed off to trash. As you can see, sometimes people get a little confused about what can be recycled... Biodegradable does not = recyclable in all cases! Ew!

As the items, through a great feat of engineering, are sorted and conveyed to their separate holding areas, they enter various packing equipment. For example, cardboard goes down a big chute where it is compressed and wired into bales for shipping to the end-buyer. The packaged bales are pushed out like pasta coming out the pasta machine, and you hear the rhythmic “thunk….. thunk…..” of the compressor as it does its job.

I was particularly fascinated with the newspaper process, as the turn-around time is just 2 days. As the newspapers find their way to the pile in the corner, they are loaded into semis, covered with a tarp, and transported to a paper plant in Franklin, Ohio, where they are made into paperboard. 

As we walked through the facility, we encountered bales and bales of recyclable materials, just waiting to be hauled off to their new life. 

They looked a little like contemporary art, inspiring me to get a little artistic with the photos. The aluminum can cubes were pretty cool – they all go to Anheuser-Busch, which is the largest recycler of aluminum. 

Heck, Rumpke even recycles their old bins!

Anyway, I would recommend a visit to any recycling facility that you are aware of, if you are interested in seeing what REALLY happens to all that stuff you put in your bin. It gives a sense of awe, in that there really isn’t any magic to it, just a little creative thinking and ingenuity.

One final point I’d like to make: I’ve heard several people validate their resistance to paying for recycling pick-up based on the fact that it is a for-profit business and the recycling facilities actually sell the goods to end-users. While this is true, when I asked about the profitability of the operation, I was told that over all the years they’ve been in business, they’re just breaking even. Some years they operate at a profit – this year they are at a major loss. This is because there is no market for some of the materials they collect. 

You know those green and yellow fund-raising dumpsters you see in school and church parking lots, where you can put your office paper and junk mail? Rumpke was paying $.61 per pound for that paper last June. Now they are only paying $.05 per pound. And while this is troubling, I’d rather have that paper bundled up and ready to be made into new paper when the market returns, rather than filling up the landfill. Did you know that 60% of the local landfill, Mt. Rumpke, could have been recycled?!? Ouch… Please reconsider your position on five extra bucks per month to sustain our earth as we know it today and add recycling to your family's waste-removal budget.

And always remember to reduce waste, reuse items and recycle those that you can’t!

 

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Cincinnati = progressive and cutting edge

My committee for the Mayor’s Young Professional Kitchen Cabinet had the pleasure of hosting a guest at our meeting tonight – Brewster Rhoads, who is Governor Strickland’s representative for the Southwestern Ohio region. What a ball of energy! Brewster wowed us with countless reasons that we should all be bragging about how progressive and cutting edge our city is and I’d like to share a few of them right here.

 

Did you know that by the end of 2010, the percentage of power used in the city of Cincinnati that is generated from renewable energy will be the highest of any metropolitan area in the US? The future ‘front porch’ of our city, the ever-anticipated Banks project, will be majorly powered by solar power. Wonder why suddenly The Banks is receiving a big chunk of the economic stimulus money? No, not to build more parking garages. It’s to make it a truly green development. Shovel-ready, renewable energy projects – we got one! Yea Earth!

 

“What?” you say, “Cincinnati?!? Green and progressive?!? No way, I still remember going Christmas shopping at Pogue’s with my mother and spending the whole day downtown. It was a special event. There were department stores with deluxe window dressings and the streets were bustling. But not anymore. This city is dead. It will never be like that again.” Wellll, take another look my friend. Just as the decline of this once great city took many years, it will take more than just 3 years to get it back. But we are moving in the right direction, without a doubt. And a huge part of the renaissance that continues to pick up speed in the Queen City is our role in the state of Ohio’s vision to be the Silicon Valley for renewable and progressive energy. It is mandated that by 2025, 25% of the energy sold in the state of Ohio must have been generated from a renewable source. And half of that energy (so 12.5% overall) must have been generated IN Ohio. But how do we accomplish such an aggressive (but oh-so Earth friendly) goal? Brewster has a plan.

 

Ohio is the capital of auto parts manufacturing. No other state supplies (or supplied, as the case may be) the auto factories as heavily as Ohio. “Oh crap,” you say, “and just LOOK at the auto industry! We’re doomed!!!”

 

Now let’s look at the glass half full. The empty auto parts manufacturing facilities come along with a highly skilled workforce that is currently serving your fries at Burger King. And 12.5% of the energy consumed in our state must come from renewable sources in 15 years… which means lots of windmills and solar panels.

 

Have you seen the monstrous windmill in Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie? We’re going to be seeing a lot more of these in the coming years. And we have to get the parts from somewhere. These towers are chock full of finely machined parts and gears. Not to mention the 300 foot towers they are mounted atop. Do you think it makes sense to ship these towers from China? Of course not. European companies that have already developed some of the technology are actively shopping for US sites to manufacture their products. And guess where they’re doing a lot of the looking? Yes, ma’am. It’s round on the ends and high in the middle…

 

And what about all this education spending we’re hearing about? Did you know that when public schools in Ohio build new or improved schools that they must be LEED silver certified in order to receive state funding? In the next three years, Cincinnati Public Schools will have 12 LEED silver schools – more than any other district IN THE COUNTRY. Not highest percentage, highest number of schools. I love it!

 

A few other cool tidbits: Cincinnati is the only city in the state of Ohio that offers a 15 year tax abatement to property owners that build their new building LEED certified. Talk about incentive to go green.

 

And remember all the press about the Emerald Ash Borer invading the area, effectively wiping out ash trees in our neighborhoods? Well, the powers that be in the city have worked out a great plan to resolve this issue. As the Parks district is going around and cutting down the dead and dying trees and replacing them with new, they are sending them to a mill in Chillicothe. The mill is processing the trees into lumber and returning them to a women and minority owned business in Wyoming (the city on the west side of I-75, not the old West), where they are made into furniture, flooring and wall paneling for the new schools. And all for the same price of pressed board furniture from China. Yea Earth!

 

So before you start poo-pooing our wonderful, diverse, progressive and growing city, think on some of these points. They are improvements and they continue each and every day due to the energy and dedication of citizens who care enough to make it happen rather than sit at home and commiserate about back in the good ol’ days of McAlpin’s and Crosley Field. I’ve no doubt those were good times, but I’ve also no doubt we’ll get back there again and very soon! Yea Cincinnati!

 

…stay tuned for a blog entry about my trip to the Materials Recovery Facility a couple weeks ago, complete with photo documentation…