Environmentalists. Every Day. America's Solid Waste Industry

Municipal recycling programs and the processing plants that serve them can both benefit from a larger flow of material—but their interests may diverge when deciding what belongs within that incoming stream.

At a session titled “Meeting Municipal Expectations” at the 2010 Paper Recycling Conference, two material recovery facility (MRF) plant operators and a municipal recycling program supervisor shared their experiences in seeking cooperation on collection program design.

Daniel Lantz of Metro Waste Paper Recovery, Toronto, oversees operations at several MRFs that process materials collected in large Canadian cities. He told attendees that his company has been put in the position of trying to separate and sort an increasingly wide range of materials in MRFs not designed or equipped to handle some of them. “Programs in Ontario are handling a minimum of 15 materials; most programs in Ontario are handling well over 20 materials, including materials you don’t even want to think about handling—but we handle them anyhow,” he stated.

Lantz expressed skepticism about the rush to single-stream collection and noted its effects on material quality. “There are tremendous difficulties on the fiber side,” he remarked. “There’s no such thing as a true No. 8 news grade anymore. I’m not telling anyone anything they don’t already know.”

Read full article.

On the company’s Web page (www.wm.com) and in its marketing materials it has adopted the slogan “Think Green.” A review of recent company initiatives and investments and a conversation with WM Recycle America officers Patrick DeRueda and Matthew Coz demonstrates that WM as a company is not only thinking green but also is enabling its customers to think green by making investments to offer a full spectrum of recycling options for them.

The anticipated result: “By 2020, we expect to nearly triple the amount of recyclable materials we manage, from 8 million tons to more than 20 million tons,” Waste Management states as one of its sustainability goals.

Full article  http://www.recyclingtoday.com/full-spectrum-recycling-today-june-2010.aspx.

The US Green Building Council has awarded Gold Certification to IESI Corporation’s (”IESI”) Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in McKinney, Texas. The MRF is the first privately funded single-stream recycling facility in North America to receive USGBC’s LEED Gold status. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2000, LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a third-party certification program that is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

NSWMA published a new position paper today on “zero waste.”

In it, we state, “We see America transitioning slowly but surely to a zero waste society. This does not mean that no waste will be produced in the future. Instead, it means that the amount going to disposal will continue to progressively decline. We support this transition. The objective of zero waste is to reduce the waste stream to the point at which no commercially achievable economic value exists for the remaining residue of the waste reduction process. Experienced, knowledgeable environmental services companies with proven and permitted collection, processing and disposal activities will lead the way in this transformation ”

See news about this release here.

More than 20 daily newspapers have published an op-ed drafted by NSWMA President and CEO Bruce J. Parker (Reason for optimism this Earth Day? For starters, let’s talk trash!”), including the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star and the Sacramento Bee. In this article, Parker states, “Proper waste management is actually one of America’s greatest environmental successes. In the last two decades alone, we have witnessed a startling transformation in how we deal with all the garbage.”

While competing in the Miss America contest as the representative of the District of Columbia, Jennifer Corey is publicly promoting stricter recycling laws and funds for advancements in recycling technologies. She has a long history with recycling. Her grandfather started a family garbage and recycling company before he graduated high school in order to support his family. That family company grew into one of the largest waste removal companies in New York. Her father and uncles still work in the garbage and recycling industry today. Jennifer is a twenty-two year-old cum laude graduate of American University where she majored in music concentrating in vocal performance and minored in criminal justice. She is employed with the Washington National Opera in the Placido Domingo Apprentice Program in the Education and Community Programs Department. Jen will be competing for the title of Miss America on January 30, 2010 on TLC.

Advanced Disposal Services purchased Sumrall Recycling Services, the State of Mississippi’s largest multi-material recycler.  Sumrall Recycling has customers and operations across nine (9) Southeastern states (MS, GA, FL, AL, TN, KY, AR, LA & MO) including Fortune 500 industrial and commercial companies, military bases, and cities and counties throughout the service area. The asset purchase included company-owned Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF’s) in Sumrall and Flowood, MS, Summerdale, AL as well as a MRF operating contract in Franklin, TN.  Fifty employees transitioned with the sale of the company as well as multiple trucks, containers, balers, conveyors, grinders, and other processing equipment.

Republic Services has published a new sustainability report. “The sustainability report was an opportunity to identify and discuss what we already do to protect the environment and to set a course to do more,” CEO James E. O’Connor said. “Being green is not just a philosophy at Republic. We’ve been doing it for years.” The report is available at www.republicservices.com/sustainability.

NSWMA’s Bruce Parker was interviewed by Zach Shtogren Big Think’s senior editor.  It is an interesting exchange about environmental issues related to the solid waste industry.

This online guide includes detailed information about the e-waste programs offered by a variety of electronics manufacturers and retailers.