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Mark Jones (Guest):  It really does start with our customer and we rely on them heavily to provide that good quality.

Bill Klaproth (Host):  Meet Mark Jones, Solid Waste Superintendent.

Mark:  I understand it’s a bit of a chore to do that. But if we can all work together; it will just keep those markets more sustainable.

Host:  I’m Bill Klaproth and this is Inside Cedar Rapids, a monthly podcast that introduces you to the people, projects and programs of your local government. And on this episode, we talk about recycling. Mark, we hear a lot about challenges the recycling industry is facing in communities across the country. Are you seeing those challenges here in Cedar Rapids?

Mark:  Yes, we are. Where we see it first is in the tipping fee that we, the municipalities pay to our MRF or material recycling facility. And as those tipping fees go up; you get a sense that the markets are getting harder and harder to sell products to.

Host:  So, where does the city of Cedar Rapids bring its recycling now?

Mark:  We have a local contract with a recycling facility. It used to be known as City Carton, was a family-run business for many, many years and they eventually sold that to Republic Services. So, one of your larger multinational companies that took over. And really, we also have other places where we sometimes take recycling and that is out to our solid waste agency which is itself a totally independent entity from the city of Cedar Rapids. Some of our residents still get a little confused with that. But we are totally independent. They run their own things. we kind of run our own things here. And primarily, we the city, we are the collection agency. We provide the curbside pickup at the residential homes and again, we are doing the garbage, the compost and the recycling.

Host:  So, you said earlier, you get a sense the market is starting to tighten up. Is that because there is not as many people willing to buy recycling?

Mark:  That’s correct. China was a large purchaser of mixed recyclables from North America and the world. And they, over time, realized that they were not necessarily getting a good quality product and of course, like anybody, you don’t want garbage, you want something that you can work with. So, they saw that the contamination was still significant, and they started to get more and more strict with what they were accepting and that actually has had a huge ripple effect literally across the world, to the extent where some recycling programs on the west coast especially, are no longer able to even move their materials to local MRFs because they never really had any of that infrastructure in place. So, a lot of it was just sending it overseas to Asia.

So, their programs are at a stall. We are a little more fortunate here in the Midwest. We could either go east or west and I think hats off to our MRF that’s able to move materials to the east coast where a lot of the infrastructure is still located, the final processing of the raw material that they get in and then they sort it out into the different commodities and then they will send it off to the end markets. Maybe to another paper mill or to a glass or to a plastics mill that will melt it down and turn it back into a new product.

Host:  So, at this point, there’s no problem. We are still able to move it as necessary. But it’s just costing more?

Mark:  Yes, we are. It’s just getting a little more expensive, that’s all.

Host:  And you’ve been talking about quality, how that’s really, really important and I guess that would go to the sorting process which involves some intricate equipment. I know there’s a lot to it; but what are some of the difficulties the equipment has when handling items that don’t belong in recycling?

Mark:  This is one of those tricky things where you almost have to close your eyes and picture a long car axle with the tires on either side of it and then put more tires in between those two tires and then on the tires, put little paddles or curvature fingers and then that whole axle spins around. So, what happens is when the load of recycling gets dumped on the floor, they push it onto a conveyor belt. It goes up the conveyor belt and it goes across these car axle type things and it sort of paddles it up and down. Some of the challenges we have; if you are just dealing with straight cardboard or some of your newspapers and magazines, your general plastics; they have those car axles space accordingly to literally float the product that they would like off of it and it’s a really cool process to watch.

Unfortunately, if you have something in there that is not conducive to that equipment, such as string, maybe plastic wrap, plastic bags, we do sometimes get hoses, we’ll get Christmas light bulbs, the strands. What happens is those things get wrapped around that axle and it just binds it up and it will actually shut the process line down and somebody has to go up there and literally cut out that item and that material. So, it slows the process, it shuts it down and it’s really things that are a challenge for our recycling facility.

Host:  Yeah, I could see where that would really slow down the process. So, you just gave some great examples; hoses, and Christmas lights. What are some other items that people think they can recycle but they really shouldn’t?

Mark:  A big one, not only for recycling facility but even for landfills are the new batteries that we have. The lithium ion batteries. And when their casings are damaged; they can actually spark fires and we have had two very minor fires at our recycling facility here in Cedar Rapids. It is not uncommon across the US. And one of the landfills nearby actually had a fire in the landfill and they do believe it was caused by the inappropriate disposal of batteries. So, any kind of recyclable battery needs to not be put into the recycling program or even in the garbage. They can go back to proper battery recycling places. They are in many communities; your local battery stores probably take those back. Or maybe your sold waste agency also has the ability to have a separate recycling program for those.

Some of the other things that cause problems. Styrofoam, we have gift wrap, there are ceramic dishes, mirror glass, aluminum foil, and containers that contain food residue and things like that that become a problem.

Host:  Yeah, I could see that. I have this ongoing argument with my wife about pizza boxes. Because the grease leaks into the pizza box. And I’m like you can’t recycle this, it’s got grease and she says it’s cardboard. I know but the grease from the pizza is soaked in and then paper towels and you just said Styrofoam and aluminum foil and how about the plastic bags you get at the grocery store. Those are all not recycling items, right?

Mark:  Those are all nonrecyclable items. I think a term that we sometimes hear is wish cycling that a lot of our residents think that it should be okay to go, and they put it in there when in fact it really is not appropriate.

Host:  So, should we think of it as when in doubt, just throw it out.

Mark:  That actually is a little saying that we like to use around here and that may be a good one to go across the country. When in doubt, throw it out. Meaning put it into your garbage stream rather than into the recycling or if you do have that opportunity; by all means, there’s a lot of good educational material out there. The local municipalities. We have websites that people can go to. We have our administrative assistants that will answer questions from our customers. So, reach out to us. We don’t bite. We’re very happy people and we love those sorts of informational phone calls.

Host:  Right. So, Mark is there any other thing we should keep in mind when sorting?

Mark:  Yes, I think the basic and I sat through a webinar yesterday from the Food Packaging Institute and one of the things that they used the term was we as the educators of our customers need to talk in their language rather than in industrial language. And I never thought about that before. So, three things that really come to heart are make sure that your recyclable items are empty. Make sure that they are clean and make sure that they are dry. And if we follow kind of those three simples things, empty, clean and dry; and then focus on containers again that are empty, there’s no food residue in them and things are dry; it makes for a better product. And I think that in itself will then allow the markets to know that they are getting a better product, a better quality, the contamination rate is lower, and they’ll be able to market that more readily and even back to China.

China is not saying they are not going to take anything; they just want that quality to be really, really good. And I think everybody deserves to have a good quality product.

Host:  That is very true. So, we have to remember, empty, clean and dry. Empty, clean and dry. Empty, clean and dry. And id we do that, we are going to deliver you a better product which in turn you’ll have an easier time selling it which then helps the community.

Mark:  It does. It has longevity in the ability to continue to collect items. If all of the sudden, you just kind of picture this; we start taking garbage to the MRF. The MRF is going to say we can’t take this. Then we as a collection agency have to then turn around and say to our customers, we cannot take this and it all ends up going back to landfills. So, all of the infrastructure for the recycling program, the equipment that we have, the trucks, the staff; you start to question what would use them for. So, it really does start with our customers. And we rely on them heavily to provide that good quality. I understand it’s a bit of a chore to do that. And not everybody wants to do that. But if we can all work together; it will just keep those markets more sustainable.

Host:  And sustainability is something we all should be mindful about. So, Mark, as we wrap up, are there any other things you’d like your customers to know about?

Mark:  We, here in Cedar Rapids, again, contamination is the Achilles heel of all programs. So, moving a little bit away from I guess the recycling side; we’re starting to see a challenge where people are putting garbage into our yard waste program. And we think of yard waste as a recyclable. It’s an organic material that can be composted. So, again, we’re struggling with that particular problem and we’re working on that. We’re reaching out to individual homeowners and trying to educate them one on one. Please don’t put your garbage into the yard waste. It’s not good. We also do ask our residents to do their best to leave some spacing between the carts. We have an automated collection system and if the carts are right beside each other; a lot of times it’s very difficult for the operator to get the automated arm in, collect the cart and return it without knocking the other containers over. So, we don’t want to leave things at the curb in an unsightly messy manner. So, we do ask for a little bit of help there.

And again, for us here at the city, we have a fantastic website that we take a lot of care in trying to put information on and that is found at our www.cityofcr.com/garbage. And we hope that folks, again, the tech savvy ones can go to the website and learn all the cool and neat things that they can do with some of the items.

Host:  Well Mark, thanks so much for your time today. This has really been interesting.

Mark:  Bill I appreciate your time as well. Thank you.

Host:  And for more information please visit www.cityofcr.com/garbage. You can also visit www.recyclingsimplified.com. And if you liked what you’ve heard, please share this on your social channels. And be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the full podcast library at www.cityofcr.com/podcast. This is Inside Cedar Rapids. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.