Collect calls: curbside program supervisors face decisions on best methods to improve participation and tonnage collected.

Secondary commodity prices have seldom been stronger, across the board, than they were in 2004. The strong markets helped provide a measure of confidence to municipal recycling advocates who have seen programs at times slashed or halted when city and state budgets have come under pressure.

Recycling as an important component of an overall solid waste plan remains an acceptable idea throughout most of North America, but how to approach municipal recycling effectively and affordably remains a source of experimentation.

Program coordinators and the solid waste and recycling companies with which they contract face the task of collecting enough tonnage to make a program worthwhile, while keeping collection and processing costs at a minimum. Even though some curbside programs are in their third decade, trial and error continues and adjustments are necessary as factors such as fuel costs, labor costs, commodity pricing and processing technology all change over time.

BEST PRACTICES. While some of municipal recycling's earliest advocates may have had resource conservation as their foremost goal, paper manufacturers have subsequently become among the major stakeholders in advocating for effective municipal programs.

Paper industry trade group the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington, now honors top recycling programs each year. The AF&PA's 2005 awards were presented as part of the Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show, which took place in Atlanta in late June.

Programs honored in 2005 were those run by the City of Clearwater (Fla.) Solid Waste and Recycling Department and the Oconee County (S.C.) Solid Waste department, based in Seneca, S.C.

The City of Clearwater Solid Waste and Recycling Department designed a program directed at students and residents that raised awareness about paper recovery. As a direct result of this program, the city avoided disposal costs of nearly $20,000 and generated revenue of more than $36,000 in the first year.

Through its outreach in the community and in schools, the Oconee County Solid Waste department has increased its residential recycling volume by 26 percent, which has resulted in a cost savings of nearly $350,000 in the last three years, according to the AF&PA.

The Solid Waste Authority (SWA) of Palm Beach County (Fla.), which has been honored in the past by used beverage container (UBC) consumer Alcoa for the quality of its collected product, continues to seek ways to improve its program.

In 2005, the SWA launched a mass media campaign promoting residential recycling for residents with curbside recycling service in a bid to increase participation and tons collected. The "Jump on the Bin Wagon" media campaign has publicized a toll-free number to call for the delivery of bins. Initial results are demonstrating that the campaign has hit its primary objective of increasing participation and tons recovered.

The SWA conducted a two-month promotional campaign that cost nearly $225,000, according to Special Projects Manager Susan Chapman. Most of the budget was spent on television advertising, while other media used included newspapers and radio.

The campaign and the resulting calls to the new hotline accomplished the placement of additional recycling bins, just as the SWA envisioned.

During the two-month media campaign, the authority received 10,288 countywide requests, resulting in the placement of more than 19,500 blue and yellow recycling bins in Palm Beach County. On average, the department has received 1,200 requests for bins each month. (Previously, the county placed bins only in the un-incorporated areas of Palm Beach County; with the start of the campaign, SWA was able to place bins in the county's 37 cities.)

In terms of tonnage, the SWA's residential material recovery facility (R-MRF) began to see more volume in May of this year, with 8,300 tons of material being processed--an increase of about 4.5 percent compared to the two previous May figures.

In June, which the SWA says is traditionally a low recovery month, the R-MRF instead set a June record for incoming tonnage with more than 7,900 tons of material received and processed.

The SWA staff attributes the success to the media campaign and the rise in awareness of recycling, says Chapman.

If Palm Beach County's experience can provide evidence of a suitable return on the expense of promotional dollars, this could help convince other municipalities of the wisdom of restoring program education budgets, which as a trend have spiraled downward in recent years.

AUTOMATING. In North America, efficiency has by most measures equated with keeping productivity rates high--accomplishing more with fewer people.

Within municipal recycling programs, this presents the challenge of collecting and processing more material with fewer people--yet still producing a desirable end product.

The trend for the last several years has been toward single-stream collection followed by highly automated sorting at the MRF to accomplish each of these goals.

On the collection side, The Heil Co., Chattanooga, Tenn., is one of several customized vehicle makers offering products it feels can help solid waste and recycling contractors keep labor costs in check.

In a white paper released last year by the company, the truck maker noted that just 16 percent of the refuse collection trucks on the road in North America were automated (with hydraulic arms to lift bins). On the municipal recycling side, that number is almost certainly lower.

The Heil white paper notes that upfront costs--not just for trucks but also for a uniform army of bins that must be used by all residents on a route--are often a barrier to this form of automation.

The paper's authors note, though, that right behind residential refuse collection, using the same trucks (and the same sized bins) to collect residential recyclables can be part of a sensible automated collection program.

The drive to simplify collection has led to the widespread use of the single-stream system, which introduces mixed loads of materials into MRFs that must be highly automated in order to produce marketable paper, plastic and metal container shipments.

Consumers of recyclable materials have not always embraced singlestream. The AF&PA, in particular, has raised objections on behalf of its member companies on the increase of prohibitives such as glass, plastic and dirt into the paper bales shipped to mills from single-stream MRFs.

One study commissioned by the association and conducted by Jaakko Poyry Consulting, Tarrytown, N.Y., and Skumatz Economic Research Associates, Superior, Colo., attempted to estimate contamination levels. It found that "on average, contamination levels are about three-to-eight percentage points higher in single-stream facilities compared to dual-stream MRFs."

The same study noted, however, that the quality of the incoming stream and the age and type of processing equipment used were key factors in determining contamination percentages, and that quality depends "not solely on whether the facility is single-stream or dual-steam."

A separate fiber quality study, conducted for the AF&PA by R.W. Beck, Seattle, found that bales of old newspapers (ONP) emanating from single-stream plants actually contained a higher percentage of ONP than those from dual-stream plants (79.9 percent versus 75.6 percent), and less cardboard and mixed paper.

However, those same sampled bales showed that the single-stream material contained more than twice as much plastic and non-recyclable paper by weight and almost 40 percent more metal than did the dual-stream bales. (The amount of glass and fines was statistically similar.)

Overall, the R.W. Beck study "concluded that ONP from single-stream programs included 65 percent more prohibitives (3.3 percent versus 2.0 percent) when compared with ONP that came from dual-stream programs." This manifests itself in "increased costs borne by paper mills--due to machine maintenance and damage, higher capital/operating costs and increased landfill expenses associated with residues--[ranging] from $5 to $13 per ton."

The first decade of single-stream has resulted in some tension between recyclers, paper mills and even equipment suppliers. But as the Jaakko Poyry-Skumatz study hints at, the deployment of newer, advanced sorting equipment may ease many of these tensions.

The overall brighter picture has been arising from the ongoing demand from paper mills, aluminum smelters, steelmakers and consumers of recycled plastic for the materials that can be harvested by curbside programs.

CANS IN DEMAND

Statistics compiled by three trade groups working together--The Aluminum Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI)--indicate that Americans recycled 51.5 billion aluminum cans in 2004, for a recycling rate of 51.2 percent. That reflects a 1.2 percent increase from the 2003 rate and the first increase since 1997, according to a release from The Aluminum Association.

"This rising rate reflects the high value of aluminum recycling," says Craig P. Eddy, chairman of The Aluminum Association and president and CEO of Coastal Aluminum Rolling Mills Inc., Williamsport, Pa.

Aluminum can reclamation numbered 739,500 tons in 2003 as opposed to 759,000 tons in 2004, a 2.6 percent increase. The number includes used beverage containers (UBCs) melted by U.S. facilities plus exports of can scrap and imports of UBC scrap melted in the United States.

The 51.2 percent figure is disputed by the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), Arlington, Va., which has calculated a 45.1 percent recycling rate for UBCs in 2004, up slightly from its 44.3 percent rate in 2003.

The CRI deducts imported scrap cans from the total recycled, contending that because they are not produced in the United States they "should not count in the domestic recycling rate," in accordance to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methods.

The CRI continues to advocate bottle bill programs as a guaranteed way to increase the UBC recycling rate. Pat Franklin, CRI's executive director, says, "The industry insists that curbside recycling and better public relations can get their message across and spur citizens to recycle more, but they remain obstinate about acknowledging the only program proven to recycle 70 to 90 percent of the cans sold in any given market: the deposit system."

LONDON CALLING

The mayor of London has proposed building more than 200 recycling facilities in the United Kingdom's largest city with a goal of recycling 45 percent of the city's municipal solid waste stream and 70 percent of the commercial waste stream.

According to a report on the letsrecycle.com Web site, Mayor Ken Livingstone has modified an existing plan to meet those ambitious goals as well as to consolidate activity "under the umbrella of a single waste authority for London."

The mayor is proposing the plan's modification as a way to decrease the amount of material heading to landfills as well as to create jobs and provide London's economy with a "green" boost by supporting collecting, sorting and consuming industries.

According to letsrecycle.com, the proposals are being considered by local legislators, and feedback will also be sought by residents and business owners and managers.

Four separate waste disposal authorities and 12 additional neighborhood groups currently govern waste collection for the city's 7.35 million people. The mayor's office calculates that currently just 13 percent of London's MSW stream is recycled.

GLASS HOUSES

Recycled glass is finding a market beyond the bottle-to-bottle cullet market in the form of household and commercial building insulation products.

The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) has announced the results of its annual survey of members' use of pre- and post-consumer recycled materials in their insulation products. According to the survey, NAIMA and NAIMA Canada members together used more than 1.1 million tons of recycled post-consumer glass and blast furnace slag in the manufacturing process of thermal and acoustical insulation.

Manufacturers in the United States increased use of recycled materials by 12 percent from 2003's level and 17 percent since 1992. "Our members continue to take steps to employ environmentally friendly activities at all levels of production, from the initial use of recycled materials in the manufacturing process to the end product," says Ken Mentzer, president and CEO of NAIMA.

Canadian facilities used more than 160,500 tons of recycled glass and more than 30,500 tons of slag for the manufacturing of thermal and acoustical insulation products. U.S. facilities used almost 6 million tons of recycled glass and nearly 335,000 tons of slag to produce fiberglass and slag wool insulation products.

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at [e-mail].