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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 2016)
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2016 Talking Trash 11A Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian A worker pulls nonpaper items off a conveyor belt at Garten Sevices in Salem. ‘The consumer holds the greatest power in that loop in choosing what they purchase’ said Will Posegate, the chief operations of¿cer of *arten 6erYices From there, the commingle gets pushed through two “screens” of spinning shak- ers and rollers the ¿rst separates the larger pieces of cardboard, the second separates paper ² and this is where the loYe letter is likel\ to e[it the sorting s\stem ,t will fall into a pile that, like the pile of cardboard, will get baled and sold to a mill, to be turned back into a usable paper product 'ownstream, other emplo\ees remoYe remaining pieces of paper and cardboard from the line, along with small light pieces of plastic and aluminum (which can also get picked up b\ a magnet hoYering oYer the conYe\or belt, dropping them down differ- ent shoots into \et more piles “That’s the end game: Pile things up so the\ can be sold,” Posegate said “,’d like to say it’s a ballet; it’s kind of a circus,” he added with affectionate grin The market Depending on market conditions, the *arten 6erYices’ process yields between and sellable products comprising multi- ple grades of paper, metal and plastic These get sold to about companies, some domestic, some international: ¿ber to mills, metal to smelters and plastic to plants, many of which operate in China because there’s “not many plastic manufac- turers in the states anymore,” Posegate said What is left oYer ² the stuff they can nei- ther sort nor sell ² goes to CoYanta, a waste energy plant in Brooks that generates elec- tricity for appro[imately , residents of 0arion County As with the wider commodities market, the market for recycled items is highly specula- tiYe A recycler designed to process, say, plas- tics, may haYe to retool the factory to process a different commodity because the plastics market has suddenly plummeted When the price of commingle is relatiYely high, *arten 6erYices pays 5ecology for the materials since the company will be able to generate greater pro¿t; when the price is low, the reYerse may happen since the cost for *arten to handle the commingle ² in labor, energy, and transportation — could exceed the money the company would make by sell- ing it “We still haYe the same amount of materi- als that we haYe to process, but we’re not get- ting paid much for it, maybe not eYen enough to coYer our costs,” Pete *rell, *arten’s recy- cling operations superYisor, said This is why recycling serYices like 5ecol- ogy and recoYery facilities like *arten 6er- Yices haYe to mind the market and shop around for their respectiYe outlets, lest the commodities, including the commingle of thousands of consumers, Must sit around “We want to make sure that we haYe a home for this product, because this isn’t something that we want to jump in and jump out of,” Fred 6temmler, general manager of 5ecology Western 2regon, said “We want citi]ens here and in our markets to haYe access to stable recycling” Consumer responsibility Because fossil fuels are burned in the man- ufacturing of recycled products, releasing greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, the act of recycling alone, howeYer Yirtuous, will not create a sustainable world Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Workers sort nonpaper items from paper-based items at Garten Sevices in Salem. Photos by Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian ABOVE: An excavator is used to load a truck with trash at the Recology Western Oregon Transfer Station on Williamsport Road. RIGHT TOP: Galen Berry uses a loader to fill a truck with trash at the Recology Western Oregon Transfer Station. RIGHT MIDDLE: A box of motherboards at Garten Sevices in Salem. But using recycled materials cuts down on the demand for land¿ll space while extending the life of existing land¿lls And it reduces the needless sTuandering of Yirgin materials, like trees, precious metals and the fossil fuel inputs used to harYest them Within the consumption-disposal-pro- duction-consumption loop, consumers haYe a two-fold responsibility — to recycle, yes, but also to purchase items manufactured with recycled products “The consumer holds the greatest power in that loop in choosing what they purchase,” 6temmler said For without consumer demand — without a place for the products ultimately to go — the system breaks down “One of the challenges is making sure we haYe a robust market for recycled products,” Tom 5ocak, C(O of *arten 6erYices, said “People buying recycled products, or prod- ucts made of recycled materials, is as import- ant as recycling in your household” Coming Tuesday: What do local busi- nesses bring to the recycling and repurpos- ing game? Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Mark Kalar, operations supervisor, waves at a passing garbage truck at Recology Western Oregon Transfer Station.