Curious Iowa: Where are your recyclables processed?

Every week, garbage trucks perform the ultimate magic trick: making discarded items disappear. But where do those materials go? What happens to them after they leave the curb?

Curious Iowa is a series from The Gazette that seeks to answer your questions about the state, its culture and the people who live here. One Curious Iowan — William Lehman of Marion — wondered where recycling is taken after it leaves the curb, and what can and cannot be recycled.

“I have had more than one person tell me they don’t recycle because they have seen them taking trash and recycling in the same truck,” Lehman wrote in an email to The Gazette. “So [they think] it all goes to the landfill anyway.”

In this edition of Curious Iowa, we bust myths surrounding recycling processes and give readers a look inside the Republic Services recycling plant in Cedar Rapids.

Three trucks drive a collection route

The big white City of Cedar Rapids garbage trucks run pickup routes every weekday from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Cedar Rapids Solid Waste and Recycling Manager Patricia Hall said garbage collectors serve 43,000 city residences.

These trucks look almost identical from the front, but separate trucks are used to pick up garbage, recycling and trash. Garbage goes to the Linn County landfill in Marion, and yard waste is taken to the compost facility at 2250 A St. SW, Cedar Rapids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/vW35W2I0Cfc

Recycling trucks are unique because they can collect glass, Hall said. Glass is kept separately from other recyclables in the truck. At drop off, glass is taken to the compost facility where it is sold to Ripple Glass, a company in Kansas City. Everything else — cardboard, cans, plastic, paper products — is taken to Republic Services located at 901 Ingleside Dr. SW.

Solid Waste Agency Communications Director Joe Horaney said that each load taken to Republic Services weighs between 10,000 and 13,000 pounds.

Successful recycling starts with sorting

The goal of recycling is to make a used item into new material. The best way to ensure that happens is to carefully separate recyclables from trash in curbside bins. Make sure that items are clean, empty and dry. Items with food residue cannot be recycled, so throw that greasy pizza box in the trash.

When recycled materials enter Republic Services, they go through presort where an employee like Justin “JJ” Gillick puts large pieces that should have gone to the landfill into the residual pile.

Republic Services Sales Manager Ali Hayford said presort is the most important part of the process. Despite this, one person works presort at a time.

“Truthfully, the goal would be to have more people up here but our space is limited,” Hayford said. “So the rest of the team has to catch it or the system has to sort it throughout.”

Republic Services processes materials five days a week and employs around 20 people.

Keep it loose, no bags

If items are in a garbage bag, the sorter puts them into the residual pile. Hayford said if they don’t know what is inside something, they have to pull it off. The plant pushes items through quickly and there isn’t time to pull bags apart and empty them. Plastic bags are hazardous to the plant’s equipment and can cause breakdowns. At the end of each day, line workers cut away plastic bags and other items that have gotten wrapped around machinery.

Hayford said for this reason, it’s best to keep items loose in curbside bins.

“It seems a little counterintuitive because we put all of our garbage in a bag but truthfully, when your truck comes, its job is to lift it up, put it into the truck, it comes to us, it gets dumped out front and then it’s easily pushed through our system,” Hayford said. “The less compressed it is, the better it’s going to be actually for us because when it’s tightly compressed, especially like a tin can next to a piece of cardboard, it’s hard to separate the two.”

During The Gazette’s visit, the residual pile included a fishing net, a bed sheet, lawn chairs, walkers and canes, and a propane tank.

Hayford said although propane tanks are metal, they cannot be processed at Republic Services.

“Take those back to the people who sell the propane containers and they will handle them properly for you.”

Both Hayford and Hall stressed that batteries should never be put in recycling bins. The Cedar Rapids Linn County Solid Waste Agency does accept batteries for recycling, but they must be brought in separately.

“Lithium ion batteries are the number one starter of fires at the landfill and recycling facility, so it’s really important that if you have something that has a rechargeable battery that you find out where that could be recycled,” Hall said. “Don’t put it in any one of your bins because it causes a lot of issues at the end of the day if they’re in [there].”

All recycled items travel through the Republic Services plant on conveyor belts where they are sorted by hand or machine. Hayford explained that Republic Services has an optical sorting system which uses cameras, computers and a jet of air to sort plastics. The system identifies what type of plastic an item is made out of and where it is on the conveyor belt. Then, a blast of air is shot at the item in order to sort it. Hayford added that caps do not need to be removed for a bottle to be recycled.

Every day, Republic Services workers clean the machines that move recycled items through the plant. This includes items from the machinery they’ve gotten wrapped around. The number one offender is plastic bags.

Hayford said, “Hoses, Christmas lights, chains, anything that can become tangled in our system should not be recycled. Also anything sanitary like diapers … it all needs to be disposed of in the garbage.”

Speaking of holiday waste, wrapping paper is a paper product, but it shouldn’t be recycled.

“Commonly, wrapping paper actually has like glitter, gold foil type of stuff on it. None of that can be recycled,” Hayford said. “Plus, sometimes it does have a coating on it. We don’t want that to go in.”

What do recycling numbers mean?

If you look at a plastic item, you may find a triangle with three arrows and a number inside. That number indicates what material the item is made out of. If there’s no number, throw it out.

Hayford explained that items marked 1 or 2 have the best market for being bought and turned into new items. These are items like plastic beverage bottles, laundry detergent bottles or milk jugs. Hayford said the market for numbers 3 through 7 varies.

“The reason you see some of those other numbers is that they may have the ability to be recycled but only in really large quantities and a great example is Styrofoam or plastic wrap. They’re both recyclable but not through a system like this. It has to come in truckload quantities in order for us to recycle it,” she said.

Recycled items turn into what, exactly?

Once items are sorted, they are baled into cubes that weigh between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds each. These cubes are sold to businesses that make new products. Paper may become tissue paper, egg cartons, cereal boxes or newspaper. Plastic can become carpet or plastic deck material, among other things. Aluminum becomes a new aluminum product, just as tin becomes a new tin product.

New tech coming to Cedar Rapids garbage trucks

The City of Cedar Rapids is undergoing a plan to ensure waste pickup is as efficient as possible. Garbage trucks are being outfitted with tablet systems to provide organized data on pickups.

“There’s a sensor on the [truck] arm that every time they tip the arm, we’ll know when an address has been collected,” Hall said. “There’s also buttons on the tablets for when they go by a home and something’s not out, they push a skip button.”

A photo will then be taken so there is verification for why the house was skipped. The tech also will assist when trucks break down. Routes can be redistributed seamlessly, saving time, miles and fuel, Hall said.

Drivers may alter their typical routes as a result of the route optimization plan. To ensure waste is picked up, make sure carts are on the curb by 7 a.m.

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Comments: bailey.cichon@thegazette.com