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.
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.
