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,´