Hello LT,
I saw Belinda's piece on touring the WMM facility, many thanks for
that. There is one item I have to disagree with, that being the
recycling of shredded paper. It can indeed be recycled if it's disposed
of correctly in the recycling bins. Please read through the following link:
https://www.afandpa.org/news/2022/how-do-you-recycle-shredded-paper#:~:text=Yes
Best,
Jeff
On Wed, Mar 1, 2023 at 2:36 PM Belinda Gingrich
<[email protected]> wrote:
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WMM Facility Tour <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqfWB1oZo8>
youtube.com <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqfWB1oZo8>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqfWB1oZo8>
In October a small group of volunteers from the Green Energy
Committee and Mothers Out front toured the facility where
Lincoln’s recyclables go. The Waste Management Material Recovery
Facility (WMM) in Billerica is a former Boston Globe building that
has been repurposed.
The WMM facility takes in “single-stream” recycling and separates
it into cardboard, plastic, paper, steel, aluminum, and glass.
Once separated, materials are crushed and baled for transportation
to separate, specialized recycling facilities. Due to the high
cost of transporting glass (it’s heavy), Lincolnites separate
glass from our other recyclables, as the glass is transported
directly from Lincoln to a glass recycling facility.
As we climbed up four stories of cat walks, we watched materials
moving on the conveyor belts. First, large cardboard is pulled out
by handThen magnets remove steel materials. Plastic is removed
next with a vacuum, while paper is left to fall into a lower level
in the facility. Lastly, an eddy current separator pulls out the
aluminum. Each material that is separated from the stream falls
into a separate baler to be packaged for further transport.
Our tour lasted almost 4 hours and I wished I had brought my noise
canceling headphones! We couldn’t hear anyone more than two feet
away. The tour lasted so long in part because the machinery spends
a large amount of time turned off as the employees cut out items
that can’t be recycled at this facility that have gotten tangled
in the machinery such as garden hoses, plastic bags, and baling twine.
*How does the system work?* Lincoln pays a hauling fee to have our
recycling hauled to WMM. WMM weighs the containers before and
after dumping and bills Lincoln for the weight of stuff we send
them. WMM separates the materials and receives money for the
recycled material. Right now cardboard is the most valuable
recyclable.. WMM then sends each contributing Town a portion of
the proceeds in proportion to the weight they contributed. We
don’t live in a vacuum. What we recycle matters but what the other
towns do also impacts how often the machinery is down and how much
valuable material is recycled.
*So what’s the take away? *
*Don’t bother recycling shredded paper or small scraps. * It flies
about like confetti.Any paper smaller than 2”x2” will most likely
get lost in the system and end in the trash containers that reside
under the conveyor belts.
*Reattach caps and lids before recycling.* The caps on water
bottles are recyclable but will fall through the cracks unless
secured on the water bottle before recycling.
*Avoid tanglers. *Plastic bags, twine, and fabric tangle in the
machines and clog up the conveyor belt. Find specialized recycling
drop boxes for these materials. When in doubt, throw it away instead.
We will have more articles to follow! Check out RecycleMA.gov
<http://recyclema.gov/>
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