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No two communities have the same needs when it comes to managing their waste. Some cities have high levels of curbside recycling participation, while in other municipalities the cost of collection outweighs recycling revenues, making such programs difficult to maintain. Some communities, often ones with waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities, have flow control which dictates where waste is allowed to go and usually means higher-than-average disposal tipping fees. Still other communities have low landfill tipping fees, which makes other disposal options less appealing. The list of scenarios can go on and on.
In the early 2000s the emergence of single-stream material recovery facilities (MRFs) caused recycling volumes to increase in almost every place they were implemented. More than a decade later single-stream recycling has a strong foothold in North America and continues to grow in its presence and sophistication. Successful single-stream recycling programs have led to high recycling participation in places like Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle, but other communities have had a tougher time making them work.
Low recycling participation led Montgomery, Alabama, to discontinue curbside recycling and look for an alternative to retrieve valuable recyclables from the waste stream. It opened the Infinitus Renewable Energy Park (IREP) in April—a facility which doesn’t require any source separation of recyclables from waste.
Instantly Montgomery went from 10 percent recycling participation to 100 percent recycling participation. In other words, it went from having one of the lowest recycling participation rates in the country to one of the highest.
IREP also has plans to open an anaerobic digestion/composting operation that will allow it to divert the organic materials left over after the recyclables are mechanically sorted out. This step is expected to get Montgomery close to 90 percent waste diversion.
In June, Covanta announced plans to open a mixed waste processing facility adjacent to its WTE facility in Indianapolis. This setup will allow the Morristown, New Jersey-based WTE facility operator to maximize recovery of recyclables and use the residuals as feedstock in its WTE facility. Just like Montgomery, Indianapolis had low participation in curbside recycling. Covanta claims the new facility will increase the amount of material recycled in Indianapolis by up to 500 percent.
Both IREP and Covanta are developing models that the entire solid waste and recycling industry is keeping a close eye on, as their potential successes surely will be an impetus for growth in mixed waste processing. While still in their infancy, if these facilities work then certainly other communities with similar circumstances will consider doing the same as a way to solve the issue of low recycling participation, especially when education and outreach efforts have failed.
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