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.