Should Decatur Start Separating Out Glass From Recycling?
Decatur Metro | September 29, 2014 | 1:56 pm
Decatur takes great pride in its trash and recycling programs. In the city’s recent Citizen Survey, residents gave both Garbage Collecting and Recycling a 91% positive rating.
That’s good because recently, recycling has gotten more expensive for residents. The city is now paying almost $13 more a ton (from $76 to $89) for recycling because demand for recycled materials is way down.
As Asst. City Manager David Junger wrote at the Sept. 2nd commission meeting that “post-consumer recyclable commodity prices have dropped significantly due to depressed manufacturing and housing industries, unstable market conditions, and changes to international recyclable commodity markets, especially in Asia.” Junger goes on to note that “the value of single-stream, post consumer recyclable materials have settled at a price which is producing marginal revenue.”
But as we’ve discussed over the years, recycling is never as easy or as net-positive for the planet as we often want/hope it to be. For example: In past discussions we’ve learned that you shouldn’t leave your open recycling out in the rain, because wet paper, cardboard and chipboard can’t be recycled if it’s soaked.
Now throw this recent observation into the mix.
The Atlantic reports that single-stream recycling – throwing everything in one bin – “is, ultimately, more expensive than sorting things before they got to the dump, and MRFs can’t separate recyclables quite as well as a system that never mixes them together to begin with.”
This is apparently especially an issue with glass. Quoting the Container Recycling Institute from the post…
Glass is the material most affected by the amount of breakage in each type of collection system. In single-stream programs, it is virtually impossible to prevent glass from breaking as it goes to the curb, is dumped in the truck, gets compacted, gets dumped on the tipping floor of the MRF, is repeatedly driven over by forklifts, and is dumped on conveyor belts to be processed by the MRF.
As such, if Decatur residents are really concerned about the environment, shouldn’t we look into going back in time a bit and perhaps separating out our glass (at a minimum) with the end goal of making sure more of the items thrown into recycling are actually recycled? Of course the benefit of single-stream is that its ease of use encourages more people to participate. But here in Decatur, we already have other mechanisms in place – read: pay-as-you-throw – to encourage continued recycling, so why not be as efficient as possible?
Photo courtesy of Gwyneth
I have to admit, that makes sense to me. I don’t think that would be a big deterrent, and glass can sit out in the rain, so a bin isn’t a big issue.
In olden days, glass used to be separated for COD recycling. I still have one of the red “For Glass Only” bins. That said, we have very little glass in ours. An occasional wine or beer bottle, but very little else.
I still have one of those glass only bins too–I don’t remember it being a hardship to separate out the glass.
May wait to see how the dust settles on this one before investing in one of those sweet big blue recycling bins – wet cardboard be damned.
Bought (“invested in”) a ‘Bluebie’ (had to give it a name) last year, and love it. Before that, my #1 recycle option was the recycle site at YDFM. The number of separate-it and place-here bins was outstanding, and I felt the final disposition of items dropped off there would more likely reach the hoped for destination…and ease/economics of re-use would be maximized.
Had a glass only bin as well & used to get so mad when the collectors would just pour the glass in with everything else. I suspect this is why the effort didn’t last very long.
This youtube video says it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExEVZlQia4
May be Decatur can adopt what happens at 13:59 with multi-color garbage cans.
I don’t see it as a hardship either to recycle glass separately, and it makes sense. BTW, I was just in Portland, and they also have curbside pickup of compost (in a separate bin, of course). We can’t let Portland outdo Decatur!
Bottom line up top: I am not against separating glass. That said, here is some food for thought.
-We know from surveys and historical data the necessity of sorting recycling absolutely drives participation down. In our city, how does this impact the ultimate goal, our green impact? Even now, we still don’t have strong participation numbers among the businesses in the city, some of which generate large amounts of potential recycling currently filling dumpsters.
-Recycle demand pricing will fluctuate and is not a constant factor. The city did cost/benefit at the time we switched from the glass bins and still determined that we benefited from moving to single stream. It would serve to know what the factors were driving that decision and to see if they still hold true.
-This is anecdotal, but people used to complain they just don’t have room for many recycling bins. We love our small, quaint bungalows here, but many of us in Decatur simply don’t have a lot of storage room. So the bins go outside if need be and we clean up the mess animals leave in the morning. I don’t miss that.