Richard’s Recycling Blog

If there’s anything on people’s minds these days, it’s the creation of new jobs that pay a living wage.   While not everyone is cut out to work on the sorting floor of a recycling plant, those who do choose such work can be reasonably assured of better pay and benefits that many other entry level positions.

Of course, with such a job comes responsibility.  In this case, even the lowliest sorter of recycled materials is responsible for ensuring that contamination of each recycled product is kept to an absolute minimum.  This not only takes attention to detail but also, adequate training.

Not everyone in the recycling industry is responsible for the actual, hands-on sorting work that most people envision.  Other people are responsible for hauling the materials in and those who oversee such operations are also highly compensated in recycling industry jobs.

Recently, it has been suggested that the organic sludge that is found at the bottom of landfills would be best used as a fertilizer for bio-fuel crops such as corn (aka maize), soybeans and canola.  There are several reasons why this would not be a very good idea, despite the desire to do something with the organic wastes that would otherwise slowly decompose and produce copious amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas, methane.

For starters, organic waste isn’t the only thing contained in landfill sludge.  There are potentially toxic levels of heavy metals and the breakdown byproducts of thousands of man-made chemicals.  Many of these substances are very potent toxins that bio-accumulate in living organisms, growing more powerful as they move up the food chain.  Others are completely untested and have the potential to case all manner of problems once they leach into the larger surface water supply. 

Moreover, such land would be rendered useless for human or animal crop production for an unspecified many years unless bio-remediated.

There are nearly half a billion cars on the road in North America.  This staggering figure has one thing in common – with rare exception, they all have four tires, each.  Given that they are “consumable” materials, it is estimated that about 350 million tires are disposed of each year.  As such, the processing, transport, wear and disposal of these tires is a massive concern, partly because they are so large and durable.

Almost without fail they are made from petroleum products instead of natural rubber, which was phased out in the 1960s.  Often they also contain steel “belts” for additional stability, too.  Since the mid-20th century, the life of tires has increased significantly, and this life-span can be increased with proper inflation, wheel balancing and rotation.  But eventually, the tread wears too thin to be safe and they must be replaced.

Recycling of tires into other materials such as basketball courts, artificial turf and road surfaces is a very common end to the life of a North American tire, since warehousing them has been identified as a fire hazard and a mosquito breeding ground by environmental scientists.

There’s more than a bunch of rubbish to be concerned about at landfill sites, and a whole lot more than methane to be contained.  Consider what trash, some of it dating back decades, is made of.  In many cases, the breakdown components of the furniture polish, hair spray and pesticides that people threw out with abandon are just now becoming known to environmental scientists. 

The pace of creation for man-made chemicals began its steep acceleration as early as the 1910s, during and after World War One.  This just happens to be about the time that the concept of a “sanitary” landfill was popularized in North America.  Like the ability of these landfills to expand and really cram the waste in, the mid-century was a time of great expansion on several fronts: novel chemical creation, consumer consumption and waste generation.

What remains unknown is what happens to these chemicals when their byproducts interact in the seepage that has been shown to flow from nearly all landfills.

Since the most massive shut down of sanitary landfill spaces in US history in 1993, there have been very few new landfills created to take on an ever-increasing total volume of waste.  Though rates of recycling have gone up considerably since then, the total rate of waste generation has also increased, to make the level of solid waste that arrives at landfills to remain nearly even or slightly higher over that same period.

The lack of new landfills is partly due to increased regulation in the permitting process for the creation of new facilities.  While landfills were once little more than “rubber-stamped” into existence throughout much of the 20th century, environmental science matured in the latter third of the century and identified the true threat to water supplies (in particular) that emanated from landfills that were once assumed to be quite safe.

With the higher cost of recycling we should all be trying to recycle as much as possible, not only for the environment but also for our pockets. Here is some background on the cost of recycling in the US.  

One of the reasons that the construction of new landfill facilities has slowed down is legislation at the state, provincial and federal level.  These laws have not only created more restrictive rules on the owners of landfills, but often conflict with the state and provincial regulations.

Many of the regulations passed in the 1990s caused an unprecedented number of landfills to be closed down, rather than be held liable for updates.

As a result, the total number landfills decreased and, according to the “law” of supply and demand, the price to deposit in those existing landfills has increased significantly.

In particular, in an effort to avoid fines for water and soil pollution, many landfills that shut down before 1993 did so very quickly and their efforts to contain the “final product” were inadequate. This has led to even higher costs that owners hoped to recoup from their remaining facilities.

Composting your organic matter can really cut down the amount of trash you create in your household. You can cut down from 2 bags a week to 1…. or from 2 cans to 1. Try it! You can get more informaiton about recycling and composting from this link - http://composting.how-to-recycle.net