One Person’s Trash Is Another Person’s Treasure

Talking With The County’s Recycling Program Manager

When you leave your recycling outside for curb pickup, do you know where it ends up? Depending on the materials, they could be in another state or another country, or if they are not properly recycled, they could be incinerated.

Rich Bowen is the recycling program manager for the Bureau of Waste Management Services, a division of the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works. The bureau’s main goal, he said, is to educate the public about the importance of recycling. The participation rate countywide is around 44 percent.

“We try to convince residents that it’s the right thing to do, that it not only benefits the environment but it also can benefit them personally because our program generates revenue to recycle,” Bowen said. “The revenue saves costs, and when we save costs, we can keep our fees low for the citizens of Anne Arundel County.”

Since 2012, residents have paid an annual fee of $298 for curbside collection and access to the county’s three facilities: Glen Burnie, Severn and Deale. The bulk of Anne Arundel County recycling does not go to any of those locations, however. The county’s processor of recyclable material, Waste Management Recycle America, handles the supply at its material recovery facility in Elkridge.

There, all recyclables are pushed onto a conveyor belt flanked by human pickers. “Their primary responsibility is to grab anything within the stream that is not recycling,” Bowen said. “We have a lot of wishful recyclers that will put clothes in there, or they’ll put a garden hose. They think it’s recyclable and it may be, but it’s not recyclable within the curbside collection program.”

Bags used to hold recycling materials are thrown away when they reach the conveyor belt. “We’re not the only customer sending material to this facility — they handle thousands of tons a day, we deliver about 400 tons a day, so they can’t keep up with ripping bags open,” Bowen said. “So they will grab the bag of recycling and instead of ripping it open … it goes into the residue bunker, which is trash.”

Materials that are not bagged and are part of a stream then travel over gears designed to get the paper to float above the other materials. Other items — cans, bottles, jars — drop between the gears, and paper and cardboard get separated. Anything other than paper gets crushed.

“The lids are popped off of cans and bottles, and magnets will grab the steel and tin,” Bowen said. “Then, an eddy current will magnetize aluminum temporarily, so then the aluminum is then grabbed, goes off to a separate conveyor.”

The process concludes with plastics passing through an optical sorter that can distinguish between certain containers. For example, soda and water bottles fit one category; margarine tubs and yogurt cups fit another; and laundry detergents, milk jugs and shampoo bottles comprise another.

Pickers grab any outside materials before everything is bailed and hauled away.

“Waste Management Recycle America markets the material,” Bowen said, “so a lot of the material goes right onto trucks and is transported domestically to buyers in the United States or it goes to a port and is shipped overseas to international buyers.”

So, what can be recycled curbside and what has to be delivered to one of the county’s three facilities? Residents can fill their bins with paper (boxes, books, cardboard, newspapers, envelopes, folders); metal (aluminum foil, tin, empty aerosol cans); plastic (bottles, jars, trays, utensils, plastic furniture, pools, playsets); and glass (bottles and jars).

Make sure to clear crumbs from that pizza box, but there’s no need to rinse or clean recycling or to remove labels, caps or lids.

Other items are accepted only at the three Anne Arundel facilities. Bowen cited electronics as one example.

“Someone will put an old alarm clock in there, knowing that they have heard somewhere that it is recyclable within our program, but not realizing that it is not recyclable at the curb,” Bowen said. “Metal materials, like scrap metal, we’ll get some people who work on their car and they’ll put a piece of engine in the container. Well, that is not the type of material that is accepted curbside. At our facilities, yes, because we can manage it differently.”

Clothing, motor and cooking oil, vinyl siding and bricks are some materials that can be recycled at the facility. “Yard waste, we accept at the curb, grass and leaves and smaller twigs,” Bowen said. “But if they have bulkier yard waste, a tree trunk they cut up or a stump, they can bring that to us and we will recycle that.”

How else can civilians do their part to help? If using a bag to hold recycling, dump it before placing the bin curbside. Bowen insisted that workers do their best to prevent litter.

“Our contractors, when they make collections at the curb, they are to use the utmost care to make sure what they’re picking up gets into that truck,” Bowen said.

“Our big push is to get residents to release their recycling for a couple reasons,” Bowen continued. “One, we want the material to be recycled; we don’t want it to be put into the trash bunker and incinerated as trash. We want those materials to be made into new materials, but there’s also a financial aspect to it. We pay for a high percentage of material that shows up [in the residue bunker] and is not part of the recycling program.”

Communities interested in receiving county-provided curbside collection service, or individuals looking to acquire a container, can call 410-222-6100 Monday through Friday between 7:30am and 4:00pm. For more information on the county’s recycling program, visit www.aacounty.org and click “Public Works” under the “Departments” heading.

“Recycling is not mandatory in Anne Arundel County, it is voluntary, but we only want to bury what has no more life,” Bowen said. “To bury something that has still has life is a shame. We’re always looking for new and better ways to capture as much as we can and use the landfill as little as possible.”