Hopewellians share a common anxiety as recycling day approaches. Will we have enough room in our yellow bins to contain what we have amassed over two weeks? I await the recycling trucks with intense anxiety and feel so much better when the bins are empty.
That anxiety was particularly pronounced on the first Tuesday in January when wild holiday parties and extravagant gift-giving produced an exceptional mass of recyclables. Fortuitously, all the boxes, wrapping paper, beer and wine bottles, paper hats, and noisemakers disappeared. But where did it all go?
To solve this mystery, I contacted Dan Napoleon, Director of Environmental Programs for the Mercer County Improvement Authority. He said that the trucks gathering recyclables deliver them to Trenton from where they are shipped out primarily to a processing plant in Tinton Falls. At the plant, plastic, glass and paper are separated on elaborate conveyor belts where humans, grids and optical sorters separate the various recyclables.
To see a really good flick showing these sorters in action, check out Burlington County’s online YouTube video of its Lumberton plant. Surprisingly, it employs a fair number of people whose job is to pluck non-recylables off a speeding conveyor belt, a sight reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times.” One wonders how long before those human sorters go nuts.
Among their challenges are plastic bags. Save them for supermarket recycling bins because they clog the sorting machine. Furthermore, don’t crush cans or bottles. The filtering process is sensitive to shapes.
Shredded paper falls through grid holes Dispose of your compromising documents on “shredding days” held 2-3 times a year.
Once sorted, the refuse gets packed and sold to processing companies..
To learn more about Mercer recycling, read MCIA’s pamphlet, “Beyond the Bucket,” and learn:
“Recyclable paper will be sent to paper mills where it will be made into new paper products, recyclable glass will be sent to manufacturing plants where it will be made into new glass containers or fiberglass, recyclable aluminum cans will be sent to production facilities where they will be made into new aluminum cans and other aluminum products and recyclable plastic bottles will be sent to manufacturing plants where they will be made into carpeting, clothing and more.”
Glass can also be converted into filler for asphalt and concrete which explains why road surfaces seem to sparkle at night.
And hazardous waste? On three days in 2024, you can bring stuff like aerosol cans, used motor oil, pesticides, car batteries, and electronics to the Dempster Fire School in Lawrence. Noxious materials are shipped to facilities in the Midwest and South for processing.
One provocative term in the booklet is “wish-cycling” where people dump obviously ineligible items into bins hoping that they might be OK. In fact, wish-cycling is a euphemism for, “Stop being a jerk. You know better.”
Another stand-out in the booklet is Terracycle, a Trenton-based company which claims to “recycle the unrecyclable,” serving as a middle-man between consumers and industrial processors.
Remember discarding #5 plastic at Whole Foods? Then, China stopped taking plastic. Terracycle will take #5 and most any other materials, but it will cost you. Their “Zero Waste Boxes” range from $105 up to $500 and appear to be meant for institutions and businesses eager to recycle most anything
According to Morgan, a company spokesperson, Terracycle takes materials from bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and garage and ships them to their processing plants in the Midwest where they are shredded, extruded, pelletized and condensed. (Isn’t that something you’d like to do to your enemies?) The end package is sent to factories where one-time unrecyclable plastics are turned into picnic tables, decking, watering cans, storage containers and flooring.
They also have a free program aligned with 150 companies. You can send non-recyclables back to the manufacturers, e.g. broken tools to Black & Decker, filters to Brita, electric toothbrushes to Colgate, etc.
Mercer County uses a single stream collecting process (rather than dual) which is why paper, plastic and glass can go into the same bin, eliminating the need for two separate trucks.
I still separate paper either due to untreated obsessive compulsive disorder or so I can put all the paper in one bin, pack it flat and save space. The downside is having to lug a really heavy container to the curb.
Also obsessively, I recently contacted Peloton about recycling a recalled metal seatpost.. The “chat” ended as follows::
“We appreciate that you reach out to us regarding an old Seatpost but I can happy to assist you. You can throw it away or you can still keep it.”
No wonder the company is facing bankruptcy.
Want to be really obsessive? Why not recycle yourself? I will do so via Rutgers Medical School. Why let my priceless parts go to waste?
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