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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 2016)
10A Talking THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2016 Trash Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Cans and cardboard are seen in piles at Garten Sevices in Salem. 2regon hopes to divert trash from land¿ lls By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian Y ou have a love letter from someone you no longer love, and you want to get rid of it. Tossing it in the trash and letting it lie in a land¿ ll might seem liNe a ¿ tting end, no douEt. %ut did you Nnow ,f you reFyFle it, there¶s a deFent FhanFe it Fould EeFome some one’s toilet paper? $ vast, diverse, laEyrinthine networN of residents, businesses and organizations in Clatsop County bend their efforts toward diverting as muFh wouldbe waste from the path to the land¿ ll as possible by maNing use of the material in some other way . T he state /egislature has set a new state wide resourFe reFovery rate goal %y , the state hopes to prevent perFent of 2re gon’s waste produFts ² glass, paper, plastiFs, Fardboard, metals, wood waste, food waste, yard debris, eleFtroniFs and others ² from beFoming garbage. For the Clatsop County wasteshed, the new reFovery rate goal was raised from perFent to perFent. The Founty’s aFtual reFovery rate for was . perFent, aFFording to 5eFology :estern 2regon . (ven if the Founty reaFhes that goal, how ever, the average resident probably wouldn’t notiFe a thing. $ll of that reFovery would taNe plaFe behind the sFenes, for the full maFhin ery of waste reduFtion operates in a Nind of blind spot ² really, in another dimension for all praFtiFal purposes. 2nFe their trash hits the Furb, most people never thinN about it. Curbside collection TaNe that unwanted love letter. Assuming the paper has no tape, glitter or ribbon af¿ [ed to it, the owner would plaFe it in his or her redlidded, 5eFologyissued Fart with other paper produFts and reFyFla ble items ³Fommingled´ together, then roll the Fart to the Furbside ne[t to the Farts with blaFN or green lids Fontaining garbage by a.m. piFNup day. Two different truFNs will Fome by and taNe the materials to the Astoria Transfer Station on :illiamsport 5oad. There, the materials will get weighed and dumped into separate piles on the transfer sta tion’s ³tip À oor,´ a giant, Fentralized holding faFility where both the garbage and Fommin gled reFyFling of about 5eFology Fus tomers lies on either side of a large partition. A separate room Fontains heaps of tires, eleF troniF deviFes, motor oil Mugs and batteries that people dropped off independently. 5eFology also piFNs up the publiF depot bins, distributed throughout the Founty, where loFals and businesses drop off the things that don’t go in their Fommingle ² glass, large staFNs of Fardboard and heavy sFrap metal, liNe Far parts and biFyFles ² and transport them to the transfer station. Meanwhile, many businesses, espeFially restaurants and big bo[ stores, haul their own FolleFtions of Fard board to that destination. Diversion :ithin two to three days, the segregated superfluity of the Founty’s Fonsumers goes in different direFtions. Some materials are aggregated and taNen to a mill or a regional reFyFler. The metal, for e[ample, will head to a metal reFy Fler, liNe Metro Metals or SFhnitzer Steel in 3ortland. The Fardboard will go to .ap Stone 3aper and 3aFNaging in /ongview, :ashington. The garbage ² all of it ² will get truFNed Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian A loader moves a pile of recyclables at Garten Sevices in Salem. Oregon waste recovery, disposal and total generated waste * (Millions of tons) Recovered † Disposed †† Recovered † 5.55 5.73 5.69 2.49 2.44 5.22 2.52 2.33 4.67 4.69 4.74 4.82 4.83 4.88 2.31 2.08 2.16 2.31 2.39 2.39 3.03 † †† 3.24 3.25 Clatsop County waste recovery, disposal and total generated waste * (Thousands of tons) 58.4 57.7 55.9 57.5 22.7 19.6 21 19 48.9 48.5 47.6 48.8 17.6 17.4 18.4 19.5 35.7 2.89 31.3 † ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 †† ’12 ’13 2014 50.6 19.3 31 29.3 29.3 29 31.3 Recycled, composted or burned for energy recovery Landfilled or incinerated *Totals are rounded Source: Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality 2005 ’06 ’07 Erick Bengel and Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group to MFMinnville, where it will be deposited in the 5iverbend /and¿ ll, owned and operated by :aste Management. This is where that love letter would have ended up ² where it would have reaFhed its ¿ nal resting plaFe ² had the owner plaFed it in the trash Fan . ,nstead, the letter, along with most of the Fommingle, will go to a material reFovery faFility , a business that aFFepts reFyFlable materials and sells them stateside and abroad to ³¿ nal destination´ proFessors liNe mills and plants that manufaFture new items from those materials. There are two basiF Ninds of reFovery faFilities. 2ne Nind speFializes in sorting a small number of materials, and perhaps only one highvalue material, liNe glass, plastiFs or paper and Fardboard . For e[ample, all of Clatsop County’s glass gets sorted at 3ortland’s *lass to *lass 5eFy 52 23 38.1 36.9 36.5 2.59 2.52 2.44 2.42 2.44 2.57 Recycled, composted or burned for energy recovery Landfilled or incinerated *Totals are rounded Source: Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality 2005 Disposed †† Fling FaFility, whiFh uses an optiFal sorter to proFesses tons upon tons of broNen glass ² everything from millimeter shards to full bottles ² that would be impossible to sort out by hand. Another automated proFess sFrubs and taNes the labels off the glass, whiFh then gets sold to plants that Fonvert them baFN into glass produFts. Then there are reFovery faFilities that sort a wide variety of Fommingled materials. 8sing a Fombination of automated and man ual sorting, they group the materials into sell able Fommodities. ‘Kind of a circus’ *arten ServiFes, in Salem, is one of sev eral material reFovery faFilities where 5eFol ogy taNes Clatsop County’s Fommingle. 5oughly every other weeN, 5eFology brings a portion of the Fommingle to *arten’s warehouse, where the materials get deposited ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 2014 Erick Bengel and Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group into a massive pile that inFludes the Fommin gle of other areas. From there, a loader sFoops up the Fom mingle salad mi[ and drops it into a ³hop per,´ the input end of a large . million apparatus with a system of filters and Fon veyor belts. At the ¿ rst belt is the ³pre sort´ line. A group of employees wearing faFe masNs stand on either side of a belt, watFhing the ¿ rst run of reFyFling pass and pulling out things that residents should never have plaFed on the Furb Flothes, wires, diapers, Far parts, sleeping bags, Christmas lights, big pieFes of rigid plastiF liNe buFNets or laundry basNets ² and, of Fourse, plastiF bags, whiFh often get Faught in the maFhinery and have to be ¿ shed out . ³(very day, we have a maintenanFe per son aFtually put on a harness and go into the maFhinery and have to Fut all this stuff out,´