A CLOSER LOOK
Ecomaine is holding a family fair and open house on Saturday, Oct. 20, at its recycling center, on 64 Blueberry Road, which is off outer Congress Street in Portland. The free event, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., offers a tour the facility to learn how it works.
A second fair, the Green Expo, is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 15, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., at the University of Southern Maine gymnasium. Green Expo will promote the idea of buying and using products made from recyclable materials.
The goal of both the family fair and Green Expo is to increase the public’s understanding about recycling and to create greater consumer demand for products made from recyclable materials.
TAKE THAT
Ecomaine accepts newspaper, magazines, mixed paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum and a growing list of plastics. Here is a description of plastic items that South Portland residents can now recycle, along with the corresponding number that appears on them:
• No. 1 plastic soda bottles and soap containers.
• No. 2 plastic milk jugs, water jugs, detergent bottles.
• No. 3 plastic packaging and containers.
• No. 4 plastic packaging, containers and plastic bags.*
• No. 5 plastic take-out trays, yogurt cups, cottage cheese and butter tubs, Tupperware-style containers.
• No. 6 plastic food packaging, take-out containers, plastic cups, coffee cup lids.
• No. 7 plastic makeup containers, water bottles, plates and cups.
* Plastic bags must have a printed triangle symbol to be included with recyclables.
Old soda bottles are spun into soft fleece vests. Yesterday’s newspapers are remade into cardboard holders for toting soft drinks. Used milk jugs become weather-resistant lumber for outdoor decks.
Growing consumer demand for popular products made from household recyclables is spurring South Portland and scores of other communities to intensify efforts to contain trash disposal costs with more recycling.
South Portland last week became the second Maine community, after Scarborough, to adopt an automated, “single-sort” household recycling program that is more convenient and projected to increase recycling rates citywide by 10 percent or more.
The so-called “single-sort” program mimics the city’s automated curbside trash collection pickup.
Residents get lidded bins on wheels for storing and disposing of recyclables, which include newspaper, mixed paper, glass, aluminum and a growing list of plastics. They do not need to separate or sort recyclables. Everything is tossed together into a single bin.
South Portland’s program does not start officially until June or July 2008, when residents will be issued the 65-gallon bins they can roll out to the curb.
But Scarborough’s program, which began in May, already seems to be meeting or exceeding expectations.
Monthly recycling in Scarborough increased by 269 tons from July-August 2007 over July-August 2006, according to figures provided by ecomaine, a nonprofit waste management company operated by 21 Maine communities.
Scarborough’s monthly trash stream also decreased from July-August, dropping by 373 tons compared to July-August 2006, Ecomaine reports.
“We are getting calls from people who have more recyclables than garbage,” said Sarah Wojcoski, recycling coordinator for Scarborough and Saco. “They are filling up the 65 gallon carts and want another one.”
Unlike South Portland, Scarborough residents previously did not have curbside service, but had to take their recyclables to a drop-off site in town.
Recycling experts say that the added convenience of single-sort bins will boost rates significantly in South Portland, as well.
“The success of the Scarborough program is opening people’s eyes that this is the way to go,” said Stu Axelrod, division general manager for Pine Tree Waste, which collects and hauls recyclables in South Portland and Scarborough.
Pine Tree Waste will use one truck with a robotic arm to collect both trash and recyclables.
“Automated recycling is the wave of the future,” Axelrod said. “I’m an old recycling guy, and this new approach changes everything.”
“The long-term solution for keeping solid waste disposal costs down is recycling,” added Public Works Director Dana Anderson, who lobbied the South Portland City Council this month to adopt the new automated recycling system.
The city’s current solid waste disposal budget is $645,000 a year.
Although the public campaign to recycle is more than 20 years old, the national market for these materials is growing rapidly, providing new incentives for towns and cities to divert recyclable materials from the trash stream.
“Recycling has become more of a booming business, and we think it will only go up,” said Shelley Dunn, communications specialist for ecomaine. “But that all depends on the awareness of consumers to recycle and then to buy things made from recyclable materials.”
Ecomaine, which processes and sells recyclables, reported a net surplus of $600,000 in its recycling program for fiscal year 2006-2007.
The extra revenues offset costs for burning trash at its waste-to-energy plant and maintaining the ash landfill.
Better technology also helps ecomaine process and sell more household throwaways. New high-tech equipment, installed in 2007, ends the need for manual sorting.
The single-stream equipment uses star-shaped rubber rollers, giant magnets and laser light beams to automatically separate tons of glass, paper items, aluminum and plastic hauled to the plant. The new technology even can sort grades of plastic.
Dunn said the machinery is faster and cleaner than manual sorting. The staff that used to pick through and separate items by hand now handles quality control to ensure that everything is diverted properly.
Baled recyclables are sold on a national commodities market. Old newspapers make more newsprint. Fleece is made from soda bottles. Aluminum cans are reprocessed into new steel.
Ecomaine, for example, sells bales of used newspapers to Katahdin, a Maine paper plant. Huhtamaki, a Waterville company, buys old newspaper to make egg containers, disposable hospital food trays and take-out beverage carriers.
“The bales (of recycled items) are as valuable as the market will bear,” Dunn said.
When ecomaine can guarantee large volumes of material that is thoroughly clean and sorted, customers pay more and return for future orders, she said.
Ecomaine is launching a public awareness campaign to show people the new equipment and explain the potential for recycling.
Dunn says the nonprofit wants to tell the recycling success story and dispel the mystery of what happens to glass, cans and newspapers when they are hauled away.
The nonprofit is holding a family fair and open house on Oct. 20 at its recycling center, on 64 Blueberry Road, which is off outer Congress Street in Portland.
The free event is from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., and will offer people the chance to tour the facility and learn how it works.
“We cannot run the equipment for safety reasons, but we will leave things on the conveyor belt and have a video showing how it operates,” Dunn said.
The public also can see finished bales of aluminum and paper items, and discover what they sell for on the open market.
Ecomaine is organizing a second fair, called the Green Expo, on Nov. 15, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., at the University of Southern Maine gymnasium. Green Expo will promote the idea of buying and using products made from recyclable materials.
The event is being advertised as “the layperson’s expo for going green” at home and work. The Green Expo will offer advice to consumers and highlight startup Maine companies that use recyclables in the manufacture of goods.
The goal of both the family fair and Green Expo is to increase the public’s understanding about recycling and to create greater consumer demand for products made from recyclable materials.
Recycling advocates call this “closing the loop.”
“We are certainly trying to educate people and hope it will do a lot to make the public more sensitive to recycling,” Dunn said.
“As southern Maine’s population grows, there will be more trash. It benefits everyone – and the environment – to reduce the waste stream through recycling.”
The staff at ecomaine that used to pick through and separate items by hand now handles quality control to ensure that everything is diverted properly. New single-stream technology uses star-shaped rubber rollers, giant magnets and laser light beams to automatically separate tons of glass, paper items, aluminum and plastic hauled to the plant. Send questions/comments to the editors.
