Everyone agrees that recycling is a good thing. The more waste we can keep out of landfills, the better. Glass, paper, plastic…so much of what we use in our households and at our businesses can be recycled instead of ending up in a pile taking up space on the planet. But we are always looking for ways to improve our services. Right now, that includes looking beyond the single-sort recycling trend.
Why? We want to provide recycling services that are most convenient, effective and affordable for our customers.
We understand how important it is to not only go green but remain green, so we offer a range of commercial and residential recycling services tailored to your specific needs. Troiano offers cardboard recycling, plastic recycling, paper recycling and even hazardous waste recycling.
However, single-sort recycling is increasingly expensive and is falling out of favor in the waste management world for a variety of reasons.
The Basics: What is single-sort recycling?
Single-sort recycling means that you don’t have to separate out your recyclables before heading to a facility for processing. You can throw plastics, glass, cans and cardboard all in one bin and have it taken away to a facility with the technology to sort it there.
Optical scanning is a technology used to process recycling that has been brought in through the single sort system. A 2015 NPR report on single-sort recycling had the apt description that a single-sort machine is similar to a grocery scanner. Instead of barcodes, it scans chemical content to assess which materials can be sent where. Magnets to separate out metal are also used for processing, as is manual sorting.
Issues with processing
The technology for single-sort scanning is great, but it is far from perfect. While it might sound easy to throw everything in one container, problems arise for single-sort when non-recyclable items get tossed in the pile. While you probably know not to throw plastic bags in your recycling bucket, your neighbor might not. Glass breaks in processing, and shards can end up being mixed in with plastic or paper.
In some circumstances, this kind of mess can’t be properly processed. Instead of the materials being recycled, they end up in the landfill. That’s not something any of us want to see happen, and it’s one of the major problems with single-sort recycling.
The China factor
When imperfect sorting occurs and does it make it through to be packaged, it can create problems further down the line. Much recycling in the United States is eventually sent to China for processing into new products, but China has recently instituted new standards for accepting recycled materials.
Rather than accepting materials with a 1-5% contamination rate – contamination being things like broken glass mixed in with recycled paper – China now only accepts a .5% contamination rate and below. When China won’t buy recycled materials, but towns and businesses are paying to pick it up and process it, the cost to you, the recycler, must increase to make up the difference.
We don’t want to see costs increased for you. We don’t want to see you recycling less, or have to cut our services to make up for machine and human error that is pretty much unavoidable with single-stream recycling. Instead, we want to provide you with the best service possible that keeps you happy and keeps our planet clean. That’s why at Troiano Waste we are constantly working to find the newest technologies and newest trends in waste management.
If you or your company could use some assistance dealing with waste management needs, we would love to talk. Just contact us today.