Blue Bags - The Holy Grail of Recycling
Earlier this month I joined six other city councillors to spend the morning working with our staff at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) sorting Guelph’s garbage. What an eye opening experience it was!
The idea was originally conceived as an opportunity to provide a show of support for our hard working employees at the MRF, however the experience also gave us all first hand knowledge and understanding of some of the issues we face in improving our waste diversion targets for the City.
At the beginning of the shift we were teamed up with a buddy, an experienced employee we would work beside to learn the ropes. My buddy was fantastic, he not only showed me how to do the work but he shared with me his values and philosophies about waste and recycling.
I’m not sure I expected deep philosophical discussions working along the garbage line, however - I quickly found out that a lot of my initial expectations were misguided.
I empty the garbage at my house, it’s generally unpleasant. I fully expected that that unpleasantness would be magnified a hundred fold at the MRF.
I expected that it would be incredibly smelly, dirty, miserable work and as such I fully expected that anyone who would take such a job surely would do so only as a last resort, perhaps they were otherwise unemployable or just plain desperate.
I found that nothing could be farther from the truth.
Not only were the conditions not nearly as bad as I had imagined, the people I worked with that morning were, highly intelligent, driven, educated, motivated and proud. In many cases they were dedicated employees with years of service to the City.
I learned that these people go to work each day believing that they are making a difference in the world and I learned that at the MRF they are!
During the staff appreciation BBQ I learned that not only do our staff work hard each day to reduce the amount of garbage being sent to landfill, they are actively engaged in finding ways and means to do it better, more efficiently and cheaper.
I cant say enough about the men and women who work at the MRF – Thank You.
A couple of other things I learned while on the line:
- The majority of our blue bag garbage is HAND SORTED. This means that when we take shortcuts and chuck non recyclables or dirty stinky garbage in the blue bag, a human being on the other end has to clean up our mess. Think about that the next time doing the right thing for the planet isn’t enough of a reason to care what goes into what bag.
- Very small changes in how we deal with our garbage can make HUGE difference in how successful our recycling program works.
Examples:
Don’t mix recyclables together - don’t stuff one thing into another – leave them separate. The sorting line is going way to quickly for our staff to pull that jar out of the box or unwrap a recyclable item tied up with something that is not recyclable – keep it loose.
Empty the liquid and don’t put the cap back on the bottle –. Bottles with liquids can’t be recycled because they cannot know for sure what the liquid is. – pour it out.
And speaking of bottles – I was absolutely shocked and appalled by the number of waterbottles in our garbage stream. I couldn’t help but contemplate the MILLIONS of dollars spent each year by our residents buying the very same water that comes out of our tap! For free!
To add insult to injury we then pay taxes to employ sorting staff to pull these bottles out of the garbage for recycling. Something has to change here.
In closing
- The blue bag is the holy grail of our recycling system – maximum return on investment in waste reduction and cost recovery.
- Our garbage is sorted by real live human beings. Be nice – empty – separate - keep it clean – and you can help make a difference!
May 21st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
That was a very interesting blog Mike. Thank you for sharing you experiences. It has made me re-think some things as well. Especially the water bottle part.
Cam
July 9th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Mike, enjoyed reading this blog and very interested in the comments on the volume of water bottles. Seems many are against the granting of a permit to Nelson to take water yet we still buy their product. I am quilty myself of buying bottled water at times especially in the heat of summer.
Mike, maybe it is time that the city take steps to control or ban the sale of bottled water. Even the topic and up roar will have an impact on the amount we use.
One other note in your Blog. You said “the very same water that comes out of our tap! For free!” Last time I looked at my bill water is a long way from being free in Guelph!!!
Keep up the good work
Bill
July 10th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Bill
Good point - maybe free was the wrong word - but certainly hundreds if not thousands times cheaper than bottled water.
Thanks for the encouragement
July 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
While I agree that our municipal water isn’t free, I think it’s a heck of a deal. People still seem to be willing to pay $1.30 for gas (albeit with grumbles). In comparison, we pay almost nothing for our clean, safe drinking water - one of the bare necessities of life. Why pay $1 for bottled water, when you can get safe drinking water from your tap for mere pennies? I’m more confident in the quality and safety of our municipal water than I am in water bottlers. I, for one, would be willing to pay more to ensure that our municipal water stays clean and safe.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Hi Mike,
Your blog entries are very well written, informative and interesting. It is very encouraging that we ordinary citizens can, not only have a peek into work that city is doing, but also provide our own feedback.
In regards to the recycling topic, I would suggest a couple of things:
1) The fact is that majority of citizens agree that water bottles are waste of money, unnecessary addition to the waste and even not good for your health. We live in a free society, so banning its sale is not a good idea. Why don’t’ we start a healthy competition in the city instead? We could set a goal of producing the least number of watter bottles per person in our city or even our ward.
2) Instead of trying to manage huge waste, recycling or not, why don’t we go more aggressively into a campaign to significantly reduce the waste altogether? To make that goal more people-friendly (people will do only things where they see tangible benefits) you could start a competition in this regard. For example, a family, or a ward in the city, who produce the least garbage per person could win this challenge. Additional benefit would be that city of Guelph would be famous for its actions to be green.
3) The plastic bags, which cannot be recycled, are probably driving people crazy, but nobody is doing anything about it. If we do not wrap our produce in plastic bags, if we buy less unrecycable packaged products and if we use every time fabric or reusable carry-on bags, we would be able to reduce our total waste (clear bag stream) to 50% minimum. The only thing needed is to have the first step, which is to START doing something in the community now to achieve this goal.
4) And finally, it may be a good idea to dedicate more space for this and other environmental-related topics. Maybe to dedicate a separate space on your page for this topic, spice it up a little and start with challenging activities. I bet you, you page would be cool and much more visited.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Azra
Excellent ideas. I am going to forward your suggestions to the staff at solid waste services to see if some of them might take hold.
One of the other things that has come to mind for me on this issue is our use of words. Councilor Piper suggested that we start promoting the phrase “plastic” water - in reference to the packaging. She said that her kids stopped wanting cheese slices after she started calling it “plastic” cheese.
Last week MY daughter asked about buying cheese strings. When I asked her if she really wanted to buy plastic cheese she changed her mind!
I wonder how many people would stop buying plastic water?
The other idea that occurred to me was the phrase - “Guelph Spring Water - Straight from Your Tap.”
I would venture to suggest that there may be a lot of people who don’t even know that the water they get out of the tap in Guelph is the very same water Nestle’s selling to them at the grocery store.
August 14th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Thank you Maike.
It would be great to promote a campaign in Guelph with the phrase you suggested: “Guelph Spring Water - Straight from Your Tap.”
In my further research on the Web I found a site http://www.insidethebottle.org
which has an organized campaigh against the production and use of bottled water. It has a very interesting Join the Bottle Free Zone campaign which could be implemented (if it was not already) in our city. I would be surprised if the University of Guelph has not already have their free zone marked.
Another interesting reading on this site was the following news from June this year:
The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution today encouraging mayors to phase out city spending on bottled water and to promote the importance of municipal water. The resolution, authored by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and sponsored by mayors from 17 major cities, aims to redirect taxpayer dollars to other essential city services…
The vote comes on the heels of actions by more than 60 mayors nationwide, such as cancelling bottled water contracts, to address the budgetary, environmental and social impact of such purchases (visit www.ThinkOutsideTheBottle.org for a map of city actions and facts on bottled water impacts). The cities of San Jose, Miami and Orlando announced bottled water phase-outs in the days leading up to the vote.
Over the past year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors explored the economic and environmental impact of bottled water. Research conducted by Conference staff has found that bottled water is being sold for as much as 4000 times the cost of tap water delivery even though up to 40 percent of bottled water comes from the same source.