By Mary Ellen Ternes and Fenton Rood
Maybe this title is a bit ambitious. In reality,
we’ve just rounded up a few reminders and
background to help build on our base of awareness.
If you don’t recycle, you probably haven’t gotten past
the title. If you’ve already earned your Ph.D. in recycling,
then please send your additional thoughts and corrections
after you have finished reading. However, if you’re like
me – someone who just wants to participate in community
efforts to prevent waste where we can – these reminders
might help us better achieve our goal.
First, remember that recycling comes only after reduce
and reuse. We can’t make up for wasteful purchasing and
failure to reuse by recycling. So, what’s our strategy for reducing
our waste in the first place? Mine is to buy less stuff.
Except for PS3 games and my kids’ impulse purchases (my
contribution to stimulating the economy, especially when I’m
tired), I’m just not a shopper, so it’s easier to avoid buying too
much. But even when we are forced to step into the fluorescent
lighting and crowds to hand over our hard-earned money,
we need to try to choose goods made from recycled materials
and avoid single-use items, including single-serving
containers and excessive packaging when possible.
Second, before we throw it away, is it really trash? We
can sell the last version of our cell phones, and schools may
want the last version of our computer equipment. Goodwill
and other charities can take just about everything useable.
There are swap meets, garage sales and now countless “free
stuff” and “swap your stuff” local websites. We can even
give back our clean shipping foam peanuts to a shipping
company. After all that, what’s left might be compostable.
Third, and finally, let’s recycle… and let’s know what
we’re doing. Apart from maybe dropping off our plastic
bags, batteries and fluorescent bulbs at some of the bigbox
stores and taking advantage of electronic recycling
events, most of us recycle through our communities’ waste
management services. Different waste management service
providers and contractual terms in each community
ultimately govern what’s recyclable and how it’s recycled.
If curbside recycling is provided, that’s helpful, but we
still might need to sort. If we need to haul it to a collection
center, we probably have a bit more sorting to do. With
the profit margin on recyclables, it’s the sort that counts;
it’s the difference between recyclables and trash. Also, we
need to do what we can to make sure our recyclables actually
have a market.
To help ensure that we’re on the right track, here are three
rules to remember when recycling that might help make certain
our recyclables actually make it to their afterlife:
BUY PRODUCTS THAT ARE MADE FROM RECYCLED MATERIALS.
Recycling can only take place if there is an industry
that wants to transform our discards into new products. In
that department, recycling is big business in Oklahoma!
For example, the largest employer in Muskogee is a paper
mill that makes tissue products from 100 percent recycled
paper. Other large users of recycled paper are in Pryor,
Ardmore, Lawton and Valliant. Oklahoma is also home to
three glass plants, and each wants to transform our color-sorted
glass into new bottles. Markets for these goods are critical to recycling, so paramount to our efforts is buying
new products made from recycled materials.
PROVIDE RECYCLABLES TO THE WASTE MANAGEMENT
SERVICE PROVIDER IN THE MANNER REQUESTED.
The profit margin on recyclables is slim to none. The
community waste management service provider has a
specific entity that will receive the recyclables. That entity
might sort, it might not, and it only takes what it will take
in the manner it’s able to accept it. We need to comply with
the instructions provided by our community so that we are
conforming to the downstream plans for our materials. If
our service provider or neighborhood center requires that
we sort, only takes certain types of recyclables, asks us to
be careful about making sure the materials are all separated
correctly so there is nothing but that material in our
contribution, then they mean it. If we include even a little
bit of nonconforming material, we might be “contaminating”
the entire load, and it will all go to the landfill. Nonconforming
or contaminated loads won’t be recycled if
the company does not sort or remove contaminants. Sorting
can be the difference between a product and a waste.
That’s how small the profit margin is on recyclables.
KNOW THE MATERIALS BEING RECYCLED.
Aluminum is an element and valuable. Thus, aluminum is aluminum is aluminum, and it’s always valuable.
Paper, newsprint or cardboard is valuable for its cellulose
fiber. The shorter the fiber, the more it’s been processed,
the more limited its ultimate use. Office paper has
the longest, least-processed fibers, and thus, the most valuable
fiber capable of further processing. Newsprint and
cardboard are more processed. Also, paper has ink, and
must be de-inked, dissolved and mushed together again to
make more paper. The paper can’t have food, tape, glue or
any other contaminant in or on it – except for staples; apparently
they’re okay.
Glass is always silicon dioxide, but the color in the glass
cannot be removed, so it is a contaminant. Colored glass either
has to be sorted, or put to a use not dependent upon color.
Plastics are long chain molecules of different types.
They’re very different than any of the other recyclables,
and while they might look similar to us, they’re very different
from each other, and they’re tricky to recycle. Even
if all the print, paper and glue are washed off the plastics
to be recycled, fundamentally, they have to be just about
the same molecular structure or they won’t melt together,
but rather separate like gravy in a gravy boat. To prevent
separation and degradation of the ultimate product, the
plastics have to be carefully sorted and separated prior to
recycling based upon the number on the plastic product.
(For a chart to help identify plastic grades for sorting, see
“Resin Identification Codes” in the Learning Center at
www.americanchemistry.com/plastics.)
All recyclables have different routes to a second life.
Aluminum is melted. Paper is sorted by length of cellulose
fiber, de-inked and re-pulped. Glass is separated by color
and crushed or re-melted. Plastics are separated into their
specific grades, washed and chopped up into bits, to be sold
as stock to be melted into new material. And of note: biodegradable
plastic generally isn’t recyclable (think about it),
and plastic bottle lids are generally not the same type as
the bottle itself, so take them off. Let’s work together to see
our recyclables live on!
BE INFORMED
- To check out the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality’s recycling pages, including lists of recyclers, e-cycling, newsletters, America Recycles Day and more, visit www.deq.state.ok.us/recycle.
Mary Ellen Ternes, Esq., is a former chemical engineer from both the EPA and industry. She is currently a shareholder with McAfee and Taft and a co-chair with Richard A. Riggs, Esq. of its Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group. She is serving a three-year term on the City of Nicholas Hills Environment, Health and Sustainability Commission. Fenton Rood is Director of Waste Systems Planning for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.
This article was published in the December 2010 issue of Slice Magazine. It is reproduced with permission from the publisher. © 2010 Southwestern Publishing.