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!
