Reaping the benefits of quality education

Reducing contamination at material recovery facilities (MRFs) begins with the customer. During a session titled “Recycling Education and the Bottom Line” at the 2015 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, hosted by the Recycling Today Media Group Oct. 14-16 in Chicago, speakers provided several examples of effective tools being employed throughout many communities to improve the quality of recyclables collected at the curb.

Chris Coady, director of bidding and governmental affairs for ReCommunity Inc., shared some of the strategies the company has used in its MRFs that effectively have improved the quality of recyclables it is receiving for processing. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company operates 28 MRFs in several parts of the country, as well as three transfer stations.

“Shifting consumer preferences and new packaging designs are causing a significant change in the composition of waste streams processed by MRFs,” he said. “Nonrecyclable residue and contaminants are consistently high across facilities, lowering plant efficiency and the value of commodities produced.”

Coady said the contamination often seen at MRFs commonly falls into three categories:

• wishful recycling, which is defined as residents tossing items in the recycling bin/cart, hoping they can be recycled, even if they officially are not accepted in the program;
• unsafe materials, which include items such as yard waste, wood, hoses, wires and cables, as well as biowaste, medical waste, diapers and needles; and
• household waste that arises from residents treating the recycling cart as an extra trash can.

Coady estimated that contamination can cost a typical MRF up to nearly $100,000 per month in lost productivity because of slower throughput, higher residue rates and increased downtime.

“We have to enforce more stringent rules with our customers,” Coady said.

Coady showed session attendees two different educational tools ReCommunity has used to educate customers. One included photographs of unacceptable materials, and the other highlighted the importance of keeping needles out of the recycling bin, as they pose a safety hazard to workers.

He also referenced a flyer produced by the National Waste & Recycling Association, Washington, that can be tailored to a program’s specific needs.

Coady emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships (P3s) in addressing the contamination issue.

PARTNERSHIP PROPOSITION

Karen Bandhauer, project director, The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, echoed Coady’s comments. She outlined what she called “The Six Aspects of Healthy Recovery,” which are:

• committed communities;
• public-private partnerships;
• supportive policy;
• robust MRF processing;
• strong end markets; and
• thoughtful outreach.

The Recycling Partnership says it leverages grants and technical assistance to transform the curbside recycling system in the United States.

She referred to a recycling study that showed the overall recycling rate in Michigan was 38 percent, but the participation rate among those who had access to curbside programs was 67 percent. What brought the statewide recycling rate down was that subscription-based programs only had a 15 percent participation rate.

“One of the immediate solutions there is to try to move subscription programs over to equitable access to recycling,” Bandhauer said.

She added that when municipalities drive high participation, they are maximizing the effect of their programs and driving down collection costs. “Collection costs are a significant part of a municipal budget around recycling,” Bandhauer said.

She also emphasized the importance of consistent messages from elected officials and call centers so the right information gets to residents.

While 10 percent to 15 percent of the population is opposed to recycling, another 20 to 25 percent is what Bandhauer described as die-hard recyclers. Most people, about 60 percent of the population, fall into the middle category of “sometime recyclers.” Figuring out how to get these people to recycle frequently and correctly is the goal, she said.

The Recycling Partnership website, http://recyclingpartnership.org, provides tools that can be adapted to local governments, haulers and operators, she added.

GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM

One community in particular that has been working with the Recycling Partnership is Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where the city of Cleveland is located. Diane Bickett, executive director of Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, discussed the challenges of overseeing recycling programs that vary from municipality to municipality in the 59 local governments—home to a total population of 1.3 million—the district oversees.

Four privately operated MRFs—Republic Services in Oberlin, Ohio; Kimble Cos. in Twinsburg, Ohio; Rumpke in Columbus, Ohio; and Waste Management in Akron, Ohio—serve these communities.

Cuyahoga County residents recycle more than 1.4 million tons of material annually, Bickett said.

The county made “a very big mistake” six years ago, she said, when it developed a community recycling grant so that individual communities could develop their own recycling awareness materials.

“What we found was cities really are not good at coming up with their own recycling education materials,” she said. “Some are really terrible at it.”

Bickett added that in addition to producing ineffective materials, often the information would be incorrect.

“In talking to our MRFs, our material quality leaves a lot to be desired,” she said. “Our contamination rate is up to 24 percent in some cases.”

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District seeks to take control of message delivery back from its various local governments through its alliance with The Recycling Partnership, thereby increasing participation and improving material quality by reducing confusion.

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District has been testing some initial messaging and will work with a local advertising agency to produce the educational materials. It also is working with the four MRFs to develop a common list of acceptable and unacceptable materials that will be deployed countywide, Bickett said. Unwanted materials include needles, plastic bags, shredded paper, scrap metal, textiles and propane tanks.

The campaign is expected to launch in April 2016 and will continue for three years. Regarding educational materials, the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District will develop templates that communities can customize rather than allowing the communities to develop their own recycling messages, Bickett said.

“We are trying to take control over what information goes out,” she added.

In a follow-up interview, Bickett tells Recycling Today this will be the first countywide educational campaign she is aware of. “There’ve been a lot of city-specific campaigns out there,” she said. “This is the first one we know of where we are trying to impact an entire county.”

Bickett says the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste Authority has plenty of work ahead of it. In addition to creating educational tools for cities within the county to use and coming up with a common list of acceptable recyclables, the authority plans to redesign its website. “We’ve got a long way to go,” Bickett says.

The author is an editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at ksmith@gie.net.