Second of three parts
Adele Peterson has submitted the following article regarding seeking solution in the U.S. recycling crisis.
“Those investments include some companies that focus solely on municipal recycling. In many cities, the current model has private companies, such as Waste Management, that handle both trash and recycling. But their business model is challenging for recycling rates. Waste Management rapidly expanded beginning in the 1970s, privatizing waste services that were formerly run by cities and now serves more than 21 Million municipal and business customers. But the largest part of its business is trash, not recycling. In 2018, its collection and disposal business made $693 Million on a year-over-year basis, while its recycling business fell by $197 Million. Since it makes money when materials end up in a landfill or waste-to-energy plant, but loses it when people recycle, the company has no financial incentive to help increase recycling rates. “Big Waste” companies now run the majority of landfills in the country.
“Government can help change this, whether the laws are in the form of waste-reduction targets for a city or financial incentives to recycle, like the bottle bills that offer cash for recyclables that are in place in many states. ‘In pretty much all countries in the world, [those] that have high recycling rates have a significant set of regulations supporting that which actually makes the system functional,’ said Rob Opsomer, systemic initiatives lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an organization that focuses on the circular economy. In Oregon, which recently expanded its bottle bill program, 90% of beverage containers were recycled in 2018; nationally, only about 29% of plastic bottles were recycled. Governments could choose to add new taxes to landfills so trashing materials is less economically appealing. ‘The cheap economics of landfilling here in the U.S. is one of our biggest struggles,’ said Kate Bailey, director of Ecocycle Solutions, a non-profit that handles recycling in Boulder, Colo..
“Transportation is another challenge. Glass, for example, is easy to recycle, but heavy to move—and because most glass recycling is centralized, it’s often uneconomical to ship it to those facilities. Closed Loop Partners has invested in companies like AeroAggregate, which turns glass into a construction material that can be produced locally, increasing the value.
“Sorting: When a truck picks up recyclables from curbside bins, they take them to sorting facilities. Inside these centers, called ‘MRFs’ or materials recycling facilities, people work with automated equipment to sort through the detritus of every-day life. Trucks dump mixed materials into the facility, where it’s loaded onto a conveyor belt; typically, in a first step, people standing next to the machine quickly pull out trash and materials like plastic bags that can jam equipment.
“As materials move through a facility, the system uses gravity, screens, filters, and other techniques to separate paper, metal, glass, and plastics; optical sorting equipment identifies each type of plastic. It’s worth noting that the tiny numbers printed on plastic packages—#1 through #7, with the 1 through 6 standing for specific types of plastic and 7 standing for every other type—were never intended to help consumers recycle, but were initially meant to aid in this type of sorting at recycling plants when it was done more manually. Sorting is a crucial step to get right, because ‘cleaner’ bales of each material are more valuable and can be turned into higher-quality recycled materials. Pet plastic in water bottles, for example, is much more valuable than many other types of plastic, so it’s important to separate. If broken glass gets into the paper stream, the value of the paper drops. In some cases, contaminants such as plastic bags can get in the machines and cause expensive shutdowns.
“For humans, work at sorting facilities is repetitive, unpleasant, dangerous, and difficult to do accurately at a high speed. But new technology is attempting to improve the process. AMP Robotics uses robots to sort materials, something that isn’t new, but uses advanced computer vision and machine learning to do it more accurately. In an industry with labor shortages and high turnover, the robots can replace most workers. The technology is able to track the type of material and can recognize specific products (say, Coke bottles) to gather stats on how many of those products are making it through the recycling system and to potentially give the opportunity for brands to take back those products in a closed loop. In Denver, for example, the system made it possible to start recycling coffee cups.
“‘Our vision is to continue to innovate with the AI so it can be used to operate an entire recycling facility optimizing for highly pure commodities at high efficiency to drive down costs,’ said Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics. ‘The opportunity is to create something that is much more like an automated manufacturing facility. We see this as the path to making recycling more economically sustainable.’
“The technology improves the economics of recycling both by reducing labor costs and by sorting more accurately so that the final bales sent to recycling plants are purer and worth more. The equipment, which requires a simple retrofit to existing machinery, works quickly, picking up to 80 items each minute, and can work 24 hours a day. The system can work on a relatively small scale, without requiring the volume of a large community needed to justify a large facility. All of this means that recycling can become more affordable and, therefore, more likely to happen. The company has installed its system in more than a dozen facilities to date and has dozens more in its pipeline. It works with e-waste, another large and growing segment of trash.”
Continued next week