Recycling "Mythbusters" presentation. Presented by Leigh Behrens and Andrea Uhl of Dakota Valley Recycling (City of Burnsville, Eagan and Apple Valley).

1. Recycling
Thursday, March 20
11:00am, Burnsville City Hall
Dakota Valley Recycling
Leigh Behrens & Andrea Uhl

2. Recycling Misconceptions:
 Doesn’t save natural
resources
 We already recycle all
we can
 Recycling is too
inconvenient
 Recyclables get
thrown in the landfill
anyway
 Single-sort recycling
leads to
useless, contaminated
recyclables
 Recyclables aren’t
worth much if anything
 Causes more pollution
than it prevents
 Costs too much/should
pay for itself
 All gets shipped
somewhere far away
 One person can’t
make a difference in
recycling

3. Myth 1: Recycling Doesn’t
Save Natural Resources
 Life-cycle analysis: examines the entire
chain of events from manufacture to
disposal
 For every item
recycled, that’s one
less item that needs to
be produced from
virgin material

4.  Recycling 1 ton of steel saves 2,500
pounds of ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and
120 pounds of limestone
Source: Steel Recycling Institute

5.  Every ton of newsprint or mixed paper
recycled saves the equivalent of cutting
down 17 trees to make paper
Source: National Recycling Coalition

6.  The energy conserved by recycling
exceeds the electricity generated by
waste-to-energy facilities
Minnesota’s Waste Management Hierarchy

7. Myth #2: We already recycle
as much as we can
 In 2013, MPCA took samples of garbage
from 6 landfills, including:
 Pine Bend Landfill, Inver Grove Heights

8.  Findings: about 40% of garbage could have
been recycled
 Compostable material (such as food) is
over 25% of our trash
 Similar to 2000 (still lots of work to do)

9. Myth #3: Recycling is too
inconvenient
http://youtu.be/HLJYQaoLgag?t=28s

10. Convenience of Recycling
 Recycling: more popular than voting!
Voting: 83.9% Recycling: 91%
Source: Eagan Patch, Eagan 2012 Residential Survey

11.  All Burnsville residents have access to
recycling as per City ordinance 433 (7-7-4, 12-
2-1991)
 Dakota County Recycling Center (The
Recycling Zone) in Eagan acts as a drop-off
site for residents
 Single sort recycling (where all recyclables go
into one bin) means less sorting: easier than
ever!
 More materials recyclable—can be confusing
 Solution: go online to
www.DakotaValleyRecycling.org/curbside to
see a poster of everything your hauler accepts

12. Myth 4: Recyclables just get
thrown away
 State Statute 115A.95: Haulers are not
allowed to take materials that were
collected as recycling to landfills or
incinerators for disposal; nor are those
places legally allowed to accept them

13.  Haulers bring recyclables to a MRF
(materials recovery facility) to be sorted
 Twin Cities MRFs
 Allied Waste (Republic) - Inver Grove Heights
 Waste Management – Northeast Minneapolis
 Dem-Con – Shakopee

14.  Recyclables go through a series of
conveyors, screens, magnets and manual
sorting
 Let’s see how it works

15.  At the end of the process, baled material is
sold for reprocessing
 Glass is sold for secondary sorting to be
separated by color

16. Myth #5: Single-sort leads to
contamination of recyclables
 ―Commingled‖ or ―Single-Sort‖ recycling
means putting all your recyclables in one
receptacle
 How can bits of glass be separated the
other recyclables?
 Do paper envelopes get mixed in with
plastic bottles?
 How do things of similar shapes, like cans
and bottles, get separated?

17. Sorting at the MRF
 Sorting process for commingled
recyclables:
 http://youtu.be/5YaTpL8nl7c?t=1m19s
 Order of separation:
 Cardboard (cardboard screen)
 ―fines‖ (fines screen)
 Paper from containers (double-deck paper
screen and banana screen)
 Steel from containers (magnet)
 Aluminum from containers (Eddy current)
 Plastics left over
 Glass from ―fines‖

18. After the MRF: Glass sorting
 Glass must be sorted by color
 Brown (Amber)
 Green
 Clear
 New technology: optical sorting!
 Developed for sorting agricultural products

20. After the MRF: Optical
Sorting, Technology in Action !
 http://youtu.be/V54iBP2CU6c?t=2m14s

21. After the MRF: Plastics Sorting
 How do caps, lids and labels get
removed?
 If all colors are mixed together, why isn’t
all recycled plastic an ugly gray color?

22. After the MRF: Plastics Sorting
 How do caps, lids and labels get
removed?
 Shredded into ―flake‖
 Fed into a giant water bath
 http://youtu.be/zyF9MxlcItw?t=1m (to 1:39)
 PET (#1 plastic, e.g. pop bottles) sinks
 Bottle caps (#5), labels, contaminant float
 Bath 1: skim off bottle caps
 Bath 2: skim off labels

23. Plastics Sorting
 If all colors are mixed
together, why isn’t all
recycled plastic an ugly
gray color?
 Answer: optical sorting!
 www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=EAOg9AaxGWI
 Sort as feedstock for
pellet-ization

24. Product:
 Companies can manufacture plastic
pellets into millions of colors to, in turn, be
manufactured into ―new‖ plastic bottles

25. Myth 6: Recyclables aren’t
worth anything
 Recycling is a business: investment
 Market values vary (for both virgin and
recycled materials)

26. Recyclables Worth Something
 Aluminum: a pop can returns to the grocery
store shelf as a ―new‖ can in as few as 60
days
 Steel: scrap is the largest source of raw
material in the steel industry because it is so
economically advantageous over virgin
 Glass: recycled glass extends the life of glass
furnaces. Energy costs drop by 0.5% for every
1% of recycled glass used
 Paper: more than 80% of US paper
manufacturers use recycled fiber
Sources: Aluminum Association, Steel Recycling Institute, Glass Packaging Institute

27. Myth 7: Recycling causes
more pollution than it prevents
 A national recycling rate of 30% reduces
greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking
25 million cars off the road
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

28.  Throwing away an aluminum can wastes
as much energy as pouring out 6 ounces
of gasoline
 Making a can from recycled aluminum
takes 95% less energy than making a can
from virgin ore
Source: Keep America Beautiful

29.  In the U.S., processing minerals creates 1.5
million tons of air and water pollution
each year
 Recycling can significantly reduce these
emissions
Source: World Watch Institute

30. Myth 8: Recycling costs too
much/should pay for itself
 MN State Statute 297H: Solid Waste
Management tax
 MN State Statute 400.08: financial incentive
to recycle (volume-based rates)
Collection cost + disposal cost + waste tax =
Garbage service cost
Collection cost – sale of recyclables =
Recycling service cost
 Households and businesses can save money
by reducing trash volume

31. Financial, economic and
environmental benefits
 37,000 jobs in MN directly/indirectly supported
by recycling industry
 Recycling creates 4 jobs for every 1 job in waste
disposal and management industries
 In 2010, 2.5 million tons of recyclables
collected: est. worth $690 million
 Not recycling costs money: 1.2 million tons of
recyclables (worth est. $285 million) were thrown
into landfills, which cost MN $200 million
NRC Recycling Economic Information Study

32. Recycling paying for itself
 Thousands of US companies save money by
having voluntary recycling programs
 Automotive companies: toward zero waste
 GM: 92%, Toyota: 96%, Honda: 10 plants @ 100%
 ARROW program: businesses in
Burnsville, Eagan and Apple Valley that
recycle
 http://www.dakotavalleyrecycling.org/current-
members

33. Myth 9: Your recyclables are all
shipped out of state/country
 Many factories in MN use recycled
materials
 Anchor Glass: Shakopee, MN
 RockTenn (Paper): St. Paul, MN
 Liberty Paper: Becker, MN
 Bedford Technologies (HDPE):
Worthington, MN
 Choice Plastics: Mound, MN
 Many more

34. Recycled Glass in MN
 Anchor Glass (Shakopee)
 Video (3:58)
Source: Recycling Association of Minnesota, KARE11

35. Recycled Plastic in MN
 Bedford Technologies (Worthington): HDPE
 5,000 tons of #2 plastic per year turned into
plastic lumber products
 Ladtech Systems: (Lino Lakes): HDPE
 1,000 tons of #2 plastic per year to make
sewer adjustment rings for manholes
 Master Mark (Albany, Paynesville): HDPE
 Over 500,000 tons of #2 plastic per year for
lawn, garden and building supplies
Source: Recycling Association of Minnesota

36. Recycled Plastic in MN
 Choice Plastics (Mound): multiple
types of plastics
 Clean pellets for manufacturing
 Gopher Resource (Eagan):
Polypropylene (car battery cases)
 Turned into:
 Battery cases/covers
 Shovels
 Floor mats
 Car Components
Source: Recycling Association of Minnesota

37. Recycled Metal in MN
 Alter Corp.
(Anoka, Hayfield, Marshall, Mankato, St.
Paul): Steel and aluminum
 Processor and broker of multiple types of
material
 Kirschbaum & Krupp (Minneapolis): Steel
& non-ferrous scrap metal
Source: Recycling Association of Minnesota, MPCA

38. Recycled Paper in MN
 RockTenn (St. Paul): Paper
 100 tons per day
 50% of the paper recycled in MN
 Liberty Paper (Becker): Cardboard
 200,000 tons of materials diverted from the
landfill each year
 Turned into paper
 International Paper (Roseville): Paper
 21 facilities in N. America
 10% of all paper recovered in the US goes
to an Int’l Paper facility
Source: Recycling Association of Minnesota

39. Myth 10: One person cannot
make a difference
 The average American generates 4.38
pounds of waste per day
 34.5 % of that is composted
 61,061 people live in Burnsville, creating
roughly 267,477 pounds (133 tons) of
waste per year
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

40.  If every person in Burnsville threw away
just one plastic bottle each day, that
would add up to 22.3 million bottles in the
landfill every year
 There are 7 billion people in the world –
what if they all decided not to recycle?

41.  ―Nobody made a greater mistake than
he who did nothing because he could do
only a little.‖ – Edmund Burke

42. Thank You
Questions?

43. One shipping container holds about 40,000 lbs of stuff
Source: MPCA Speaker Series: Adam Minter

44.  Plastics, the ―new‖ packaging
 http://youtu.be/s5p6Nk3SzcU?t=14s