Recycling
Recycling
Where does your pop bottle go after you throw it into the recycle toter?
Recently I took a day to learn as much as possible about its path. From the toter, the plastic bottle is picked up by a city employee in an automated truck. When the truck is full, it heads west. Now here is the part where you gasp-- it heads straight to the landfill in Medora. No, it doesn’t end up in the landfill, but it makes a stop at the Rumpke transfer station which happens to be located in Medora on the landfill property. After a brief stop at the transfer station, the bottle will be loaded on a trailer and shipped to the 8th largest Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in America. Now here is where my adventure got exciting. Like many of us, I am a skeptic sometimes and wanted to see this part of the process for myself so I could confidently tell you that it does, in fact, get recycled.
In 2012, Rumpke had a fire that destroyed this facility. They had a decision to make as a company and chose to invest $32 million in the new and improved MRF that you see in the pictures. They sort 55 tons of commingled recyclables per hour. That is taking your toter of mixed recyclables and baling it with matching materials to be sold to someone that will turn it back into a usable product. 98% of what they recycle goes to American companies. I don’t know about you, but for me, that is a big deal.
So how much of the Seymour’s 95 tons a month of commingled recycling comes out of the MRF? 90% of what comes in makes it to the bale stage and is recycled. 5% is stuff that shouldn’t have been in your recycling toter to start with. The last 5% is lost to contamination or just simply sorted into the wrong spot and ends up lost in the process. I am glad I took some time to tour the MRF and understand the process. I can now say with confidence that Seymour recycles and while it isn’t a perfect process, we are definitely ahead of some of our peers.
This is the point where you jump in with the usual questions or comments of why don’t we recycle everything? Well, the sad truth is that some recyclable materials like larger-numbered plastics don’t have buyers willing to recycle them at this time. I have included a picture that should help with what is accepted and what isn’t. I can also tell you the Seymour Department of Public Works (DPW) shares this info and more on a regular basis on their Facebook page.
DPW has also worked side by side with the Jackson County Solid Waste District to make sure that we are offering the best possible service at the most reasonable rate possible. I look forward to making sure we always explore options to streamline our part of the process and keep our costs as low as possible. The next time you hear someone say Seymour doesn’t really recycle, please feel free to send them my way for a conversation about the process. I have seen it with my own two eyes and am happy to explain what I have learned and am also happy to forward them to those that have answers I might not have.
