Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is the phrase almost every kid has known by heart since the 1970s when it was introduced. However, many don’t stop to think about what that phrase actually is asking, or what happens to the trash or recycling they throw away.
“You hear a lot of, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s going in the landfill’,” Stephen Wortmann, Recycling Coordinator for Republic Services said. “And it’s not the case, like every little bit goes through.”
Republic Services, the leader in the environmental services industry and the owner of the trash trucks many most likely see every week, plays a crucial role in the recycling process. They are also the first in the country to create Polymer Centers, the first one opening in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a second one recently opening in Indianapolis, Indiana.
“We’re going to be transporting that material from the city of St. Charles to Indianapolis, and it’s going to be what they called flaked,” Joell Aguirre, Manager of Municipal Sales for Republic Services said. “And a water bottle is going to stay a water bottle, like a tight detergent bottle is going to stay a tight detergent bottle. So what it’s doing is it’s increasing the circularity. It’s increasing the life of that product. So, it doesn’t end up in a landfill.”
The issue that created the need for these centers arised when items such as plastic water bottles, which could easily be turned back into plastic water bottles through recycling, were turned into things like carpets and clothing. After it’s reached the end of its lifespan, carpet typically gets thrown into the landfill. However, a plastic water bottle could stay in that cycle of being used and recycled for a longer period of time.
“Republic Services is the only hauler in the United States that has a polymer center,” Aguirre said. “How this all came about, is because legislation is being put on our large businesses. So [they] came to Republic Services and said, ‘Hey, the government’s putting all these regulations on our packaging, and there’s not enough clean plastic out there for us to meet that. And so that is how the polymer centers came about. So right now, Republic Services has contracts with Coke, Mars candy bars, L’Oreal cosmetics, I think Pepsi, and there’s one more, and we’re the only one in the United States that does that.”
The material that is received by Polymer Centers was already processed and sorted back at the recycling center. The first series of steps it goes through sorts the metal and aluminum out of the plastic. Optical Sorters utilize cameras and light to identify material based on specific characteristics about it, in order to sort out what is not wanted. From there, the plastic goes through a grinding process that uses water to turn the plastic into PET and Olefin Flakes.
When recycling at home, it is helpful to the process that happens at the Polymer Centers if the caps and rings are kept on plastic bottles when they are recycled. In the float-sink process, they are separated when the cap and ring float while the bottle sinks due to the density difference between the Olefin and PET material.
“What I really like to point out to everybody, those Schnucks [or] Walmart [bags], anywhere you go, we cannot take those because these are the bags that get through. So, we actually have to have someone there cut those out,” Wortmann said.
Because the purpose of this whole process is to increase the circularity of plastic, the plastic needs to endure multiple rounds of washing to ensure it is a food-grade material once again. A two-step drying process follows to ensure that no moisture remains in the plastic.
Following that is one last screening process to target any material that is either too fine, or a color other than white or blue. These steps ensure it is ready for the last part of the process, which is loading it all into super sacs that hold one ton of material, ready to be shipped to buyers.
According to Republic Services, the impact Polymer Centers have on the recycling process is expected to allow most PET bottles to be recycled into new bottles six to seven times in their lifespan. Although the only two locations are relatively new, the outcome of these centers could possibly begin to dispel the rumors that recycling just ends up in the landfill.
“From my role, it’s the education part,” Wortmann said. “Going out to the community, preaching the good word, doing what we can do. Dispelling myths is the biggest thing.”
