2010-03-23_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

In other cities in Minnesota, residents set out their glass thinking that is it being recycled when it is not. Unfortunately, much of the glass in Minnesota is not recycled but is instead used as an aggregate, a sandblasting medium, or in landfill operations as roadbed. When residents learn that materials are not being recycled as they expected, they become skeptical, which understandably detracts from their willingness to take the time and energy to participate in the program and further reduces the environmental and economic benefits that recycling provides. Because the City of Roseville and Eureka Recycling share a value that the items that residents take the time to set out should actually be recycled, we have taken steps to ensure the glass collected in Roseville is recycled back into glass bottles. For glass to be recycled into new bottles it must be separated by color. Clear bottles are recycled into clear, brown into brown, green bottles into new green bottles. If the glass is not color-separated it is much harder, if not impossible for glass manufacturers to use it. The way in which glass-or any material-is collected and sorted impacts the quality of that material and the ability for that material to be recycled. Eureka Recycling uses a two sort system of collections. All paper types are collected in one compartment of the truck and all container types are collected in another. These materials are not compacted so there is much less breakage and embedding of glass. In contrast, in single-stream programs glass is collected with other materials like cardboard and paper. These materials are often compacted during collection and must be run across more processing machinery, resulting in higher amounts of breakage. This not only makes the glass much harder to sort out but it also significantly decreases the value of the paper and cardboard because glass is embedded into those materials. (This not only reduces the amount of glass being recycled, it also lowers the quality of the paper being sent to the mill for recycling.) In addition to two-stream collection, Eureka Recycling has also demonstrated that glass can be recycled by investing in optical-sort equipment at our MRF. This equipment utilizes color recognition technology that separates glass by color as well as contaminants from the finished product that are incompatible with the glass manufacturing process. The result is that glass collected in Roseville is color-sorted on location at Eureka Recycling's facility and can be easily recycled back into glass bottles. This not only benefits Roseville, but it supports our local glass market (Anchor Glass in Shakopee, MN) and the local economy. Roseville is one of the few cities in the Twin Cities that can claim their glass is truly recycled because they partner with Eureka Recycling, ensuring that the environmental benefits of recycling are maximized and that actions taken by residents are honored. The Story of Pop and Beer Boxes, Milk Cartons and Juice Boxes At most MRFs, pop and beer boxes, and milk cartons and juice boxes are mixed and bailed with other papers and cardboard into "Mixed Paper Bails". These mixed bails are then sent to paper mills where the fibers are dumped into a pulper to begin their journey to being new paper products. This is where the problem occurs. 6